The homesteaders in the Big Horn Basin in central Wyoming were known as outlaws and friends of outlaws.
It was one of the most remote and isolated regions in the Wyoming Territory where a person could easily disappear.
Early ranchers along the Bridger Creek — the Picard and Hayes families — once stabled fresh horses for Butch Cassidy and others of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang. The family had even been known to hide outlaws in their cellar.
Years later, their neighbor, Walt Punteny, a former member of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang, had a ranch known as a safe haven for outlaws.
While the gun battles and horse rustling in the region have inspired movies and books, one story that has been told around the campfire has sent chills down the backs of cowhands for generations.
It’s a story of abandonment and ghostly happenings that happened just above the hill from the Picard family ranch.
The Clapboard Cabin
A small, haunted shack known as the Rech Cabin was located on an isolated homestead near Meadow Creek and close to the trail blazed by Wyoming mountain man and legend Jim Bridger.
“It was just an old homesteader's little house,” Thermopolis cowboy Larry Bentley said. “Just four walls and a roof. No insulation and not much interior walls.”
The cabin was not even a log cabin, Bentley said.
It was made of 12-inch clapboard siding. Even by homesteader standards of the late 1800s, it was not a well-built cabin and was not built to withstand the brutal Wyoming winters.
“It's high country there and good grass country in the summer,” historian Ray Shaffer said. “The cabin is set in a little meadow near running water so would be an ideal place. But only in the summertime.”
Locals are not sure when the homestead was built, either in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Their neighbors would have been miles away and visitors rare in the region.
Unprepared For The Winter
“I was told that they homesteaded in that place, and they didn't lay their supplies in time,” Bentley said. “As winter set in, he took their team and went to town with a wagon to get supplies.”
The homesteader’s wife was left behind, expecting him to return within just a few days. However, her husband got distracted.
“It was pretty common back at that time that instead of going straight to get the supplies, he would have stopped off at the bar and had a few drinks for a day or two with his friends,” Bentley said.
The homesteader most likely headed to Lander, which was an easier route and had more supplies. And entertainment.
“There were rumors he had a girlfriend and didn't come back,” Shaffer said. “Of course, that just that adds to the story.”
Before the homesteader could get loaded up and head home, a big winter storm came in.
“Of course, at that time there wasn't any way to open the roads,” Bentley said. “He couldn't get back to their cabin.”
As she waited for her husband to return, the abandoned woman slowly began to starve. She ran out of what little supplies she had and death claimed her.
“There's a cross at the top of the hill above where the old house was,” Bentley said. “I've heard it's supposed to be where they buried her.”
CeCe Picard, whose family has been in the area since the late 1800s, had heard the same story from her father, Raymond Picard.
He had told his daughter that the woman had died of lonesomeness. A sweet way to say her broken heart was the result of starving and the cold.
The small grave now lies abandoned and alone on the hillside.
The 2B Ranch was one of the neighboring ranches to the haunted Rech Cabin. It is believed that the small clapboard shack was haunted by the ghost of a woman who starved to death after her husband left her at their homestead and a storm blew in. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
The red hills and green grass would lull a homesteader into believing that the ranches along Bridger Creek in Wyoming were a paradise. That is, until winter hit with its fiery and you were unprepared. Such as the case as one homesteader in this region who left his wife to get supplies. Her spirit was said to haunt their cabin unless food was offered to her. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Even today, the Bridger Creek region in central Wyoming is remote and many ranchers still rely on their horses as the best transportation. A homesteader is said to have abandoned his wife in their cabin during a cold Wyoming winter and she slowly starved to death. Her ghost was said to continue to haunt the cabin for nearly one hundred years. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Ghostly Visitors
It is not said what happened to the homesteader after he buried his wife, but the cabin remained and was soon after called the Rech Cabin after the local blacksmith who bought it.
John Jacob Rech, known as J.J., took over the homestead sometime around 1905.
By 1908, a Californian man named E.S. Sanford was hired and eventually, his family took over the homestead.
They continued to call the small building the Rech Cabin and started to notice strange occurrences around the shack.
“The Sanford boys would tie up their horse and when they came back, their horses were all turned loose,” Shaffer said. “But nobody would be there.”
While working for the Sanfords, former cowboy Dave Schlager was up at the cabin with owner Barney Sanford and Sanford pointed out all the mud swallows on the new cabin the family had built near the Rech cabin.
“The swallows were terrible on the eves of that cabin, but they never got any nests built on the old cabin,” Schlager said. “Barney said that the ghost kept the nests knocked down.”
Although he was not one to fall for the ghostly tales, Schlager witnessed the birds avoiding the haunted shack for himself.
“I was there a couple of times, and you could see where the mud swallows had started building nests on that old cabin, but they never got a complete nest built,” Schlager said. “And the new cabin was just covered with those mud swallow nests so I guess I'd have to believe that she did keep them knocked off of there.”
Over the years, Schlager heard other stories about strange disturbances in the haunted cabin that he could not easily explain away.
“They had all kinds of stories that you couldn't explain,” Shaffer said. “Doors opening and shutting and table and chairs moving around.”
Skeptic Believes
Bentley had heard the rumor about the haunted homesteader cabin even before he began trailing cattle in the area.
“I was told that you could lay there at night and watch in the cabin, and there'd be a light that floated around inside the old house,” Bentley said. “The story was that if you put out a sandwich, the light would disappear because she had found food.”
Bentley did not believe in ghosts, until he saw the lights for himself.
They had just trailed a bunch of cows up for the summer and were staying overnight to make sure all the cows were paired up.
Bentley was camping near the cabin when he saw a soft light moving around.
There was nothing that should have caused the light to move around like that in the middle of nowhere.
Bentley became a believer.
“I was shocked that it actually happened,” Bentley said. “Since then, I’ve seen the lights a couple of times.”
He would have seen the lights more, however, he would usually remember to pack an extra peanut butter sandwich.
“There were a lot of nights we put a sandwich in the cabin,” Bentley said. “The next morning it would be gone although you could credit that to maybe pack rats or something.”
The lights, however, he could not explain away.
“As long as you fed her, you didn't see the light,” Bentley said. “And if you didn't, she floated around in there most of the night.”
The old house has since fallen down, according to neighbor Mary Picard, and the ghost light and other happenings have not been witnessed in recent years.
“I don't know if she’s gone or not,” Bentley said. “I just know I spent a lot of nights up there and I always made sure I had a sandwich for her.”
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
