OUR HISTORY
The Diamond Cross Ranch traces its beginnings back to 1912. That’s when our great grandparents, Fred and Caroline Feuz, homesteaded to the valley. Swiss immigrants, they didn’t have much to their names besides the clothes on their backs. But inspired by the rugged beauty of the Grand Tetons, they resolved to make their place here.
The Right Way, Not the Easy Way
Through sheer determination they staked their claim on a rocky patch of land at the feet of the iconic mountains. In a small one-bedroom cabin hastily constructed before the onset of winter, they settled in with the first three of ten children.
Guiding hunters—a talent Fred, who grew up poor, developed in Switzerland as a child to help put food on the table—the family scraped together a meager savings, which they used to purchase a small herd of Hereford cattle. That would become one of the valley’s first successful ranching operations.
It wasn’t an easy living. The boys of the family, most of whom completed only an eighth-grade education (the girls would leave to live with extended family and continue their schooling), spent summers clearing rocks from the pastures. They learned to break horses, which were vital to working the land.
After World War II, Walter—the second oldest son and an accomplished bronc rider (he was posthumously inducted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame; pictured above)—and his brother Emil used their military stipends to purchase a few plots of land from the original homesteaders. Later, Walter would buy out his brother, whose family couldn’t bear the severe winters.
At a barn dance in Moose, Wyoming, Walt met Betty, an educated young woman from Chicago, who on a whim joined her dear friend Esther Craighead on a summer trip to live and work in Jackson Hole. After a short courtship, the two married at the end of the season. They would go on to have four daughters—or, as the family jokes, Betty raised four daughters. Walt raised four cowboys.
Good things take time. Great things take a little longer.
At the height of their operation, Walt, Betty and their daughters, Jane, Marti, Chris and JoAnn, ran a 400 pair cow-calf herd. Betty would feed the hired hands that dropped by during the summers to help with haying (her cooking is something of folklore), while Walt and the girls spent most days in the fields from sunup to sundown.
Today, our ranching operation looks a bit different. The herd’s thinned as grazing permit have tightened up. There aren’t as many cowhands shacked up in the ol’ bunkhouse as there was once. But we still do things the old-fashioned way: Pasture-raised, sustainable, and environmentally responsible. And we are proud to pass down those traditions to the fifth generation, which we hope will continue to build on this long history.
We raise cattle the way our ancestors did. Not because it’s the easy way, but because it’s the right way. It’s our honor to be able to share it with you, and we trust you will taste the difference that 100 years of ranching in Jackson Hole makes. From our family to yours, thank you.