An early figure in the cattle industry of the Bear River Valley was William Crawford, after whom the Crawford Mountains were named. Crawford opened a commercial packing house at Evanston in the early 1870s to supply meat to crews of the Union Pacific Railroad.
By 1872 he had joined forces with William Thompson and moved over five hundred head of cattle on the range east of Randolph. During the severe winter of 1876 virtually the entire herd perished.
During the ensuing years, Crawford and Thompson pooled their resources together with those of two other Evanston businessmen, E. S. Crocker and Harvey Booth. The four constructed the first irrigation canal from Bear River in 1878.
However, during the process of trying to determine the rights on the new canal, a misunderstanding developed between the foursome. William Crawford disappeared from a dance at Evanston in February 1893. Although his body was never recovered, it was assumed that he had been taken from Evanston and thrown in the burning slag heap at the mine at Almy. Two years later Harvey Booth was murdered in a barn belonging to the company. Neither murder was ever solved.124
Crocker was arrested for both murders. He was at first convicted for killing Booth, but it overturned by a judge saying that there was too much prejudice in the area. The trial was moved to Cheyenne and he was acquitted after the second trial. The charge of the murder of Crawford was dismissed because they could not prove he was dead.
History of Rich County (124. Information on William Crawford and the Ford Ranch is taken from the following sources: Elizabeth Arnold Stone, Uinta County: Its Place in History (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Co., [ 1924]), 185; Thomson, Rich Memories, 16-18, and Kennedy, interview with Loran Jackson.
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