September 3, 1920. Stepp appointed postmaster.
1920 Alonzo Stepp was appointed the postmaster of Fontenelle, Wyoming. He was an area rancher.
That may not seem remarkable, but Stepp was an African American who was exceptional for his era in numerous ways, one of which was that he was one of few black ranchers in the state at the time, with there remaining few today. The Kentucky born Stepp was college educated, having received a classical education, but immigrated to Wyoming with his wife, whom he'd met in college, to pursue ranching after having worked on a Wyoming ranch one summer while in college. That introduction to ranching came through the invitation of a college friend, who was a white student. Lon Stepp ultimately moved back to Wyoming and into ranching, working on area ranches and purchasing land over the years until he had a full time operating ranch. By 1920, he's already served as an elected district road supervisor. He occupied the postmaster position until December 15, 1941, when he died.
The Stepps would continue to ranch in the area until their ranch was one of the ones that was taken over by the government for Fontenelle Reservoir in 1963. The Stepps fought the condemnation for the reservoir in court but ultimately lost.
Fontenelle Reservoir in 1972.
Perhaps ironically, the dam for the reservoir on their land which they had opposed has proven to be leaky and the reservoir has had to been hurriedly drained twice. Irrigation from the reservoir never really developed due to the difficulties of doing that in a high desert region, and therefore the lake has principally been used for recreation.
Stepp family members remain prominent in the area today.
From here.
I have to say, something like this would break my heart if it happened to me. How unfair.
Now, I'm very far from having the view that the dipshits at the Western Watersheds Project do, whose views would actually destroy the West by pushing agriculture out so development would come in (they don't realize that's the impact of their argument. . . which is why they are dipshits). But Fontenelle, whatever its merits, certainly didn't live up to its claims and original purpose.
Indeed, while I'm also not in that "tear down the dams" camp, it ought to be sort of obvious that the late dams in the dam building era weren't really successful. We have this 1963 example, which at least works better than the 1960 Anchor Dam in Hot Springs County.
As far as I know, the Stepps, when bought out against their will, didn't go back into ranching, even though their descendants remain in the area. Some would have relocated elsewhere, but it isn't that easy to do. This tragedy is all the more that, frankly, as they represented an already declining demographic, black agriculturalist, and one that in Wyoming was very underrepresented.
The Stepp's ranch was not subject to flooding, of course, because they were black. It was merely accidental. And a person can't rationally argue that the dam shouldn't have been built simply because of their ethnicity. But the entire matter is a tragedy nonetheless as black agriculturalist were well represented early in the 20th Century and are highly unrepresented now. There's a lot of reasons that occurred, but simple indifference to them is one of the reasons for it. And indifference can be just as destructive as an intentional act.
Which might cause us to want to circle around and see what we're indifferent to in agriculture today. There are undoubtedly those areas in which we are, including being indifferent to the production value of land vs. its entertainment value, and what that means in terms of our ultimate ability to feed ourselves and the ability for people who would make their living from the land to really be able to do so.
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