Larrey L. Smith of near Fenton in Bighorn County, Wyoming is one of the representative and progressive men of this state who unlike most others of his class was born within her limits and has passed almost all of his life on her soil thus being her product as well as one of the best types of her enterprising citizenship. His life began on September 8, 1863, and his parents were Timothy M. and Amanda (Arnold) Smith, natives of New York who on the threshold of their new life soon after their marriage came to the Northwest and cast in their lot with its awakening energies and joined the forces that were busily occupied in giving them proper trend and development. At the time of the birth of their son Larrey their home was at Fort Laramie then in the territory of Dakota where his father was an army surgeon. When their son Larrey was a little over a year old they removed to Colorado and took up their residence near Fort Collins. There the father resigned his position as surgeon of the U. S. government in order to devote his medical skill to the service of the scattered settlers of the new territory and there they lived until 1876 when they returned to this state and located at Rawlins. After a limited and irregular attendance at the primitive schools that were available to him. Larrey went to work to earn his own living as a range rider and continued to follow this vocation until 1889 in that portion of the state. He then came to the Bighorn basin took up the ranch on which he now lives and while he was reducing it to cultivation and preparing it for the cattle industry in which he had determined to embark he rode the range for a living and to obtain the means of starting his business. For five years he braved storm and danger in this hazardous occupation in the prolific cattle region to which he had come at the end of that period settling on his ranch where he became a producer of the leading commodity of the section instead of a paid employee protecting and preserving it for others. He has 160 acres of good land which shows the evidence of his skill and industry in its improvements and the advanced state of cultivation to which much of it has been brought. On this he now raises numbers of horse’s cattle and hogs giving special attention to procuring choice breeds and maintaining a high standard of excellence in quality. Mr. Smith has so far walked life’s way alone pushing his business forward to vigorous vitality and large development and aiding in securing for the community in which he lives every advantage in progress and commercial and in industrial strength the circumstances will allow at the same time stimulating by judicious counsel and active assistance all of its educational and moral forces. He is an enterprising wide awake foreseeing and useful citizen neighbor friend and companion and is highly respected and esteemed.
