William H. Hunt is in all respects essentially both a product and a representative of the frontier and the cattle industry, having passed his life so far practically as a pioneer and on the range. He was born in Texas on December 12, 1858 and became a resident of Wyoming in 1880. His parents were William H. and Catherine (Cardell) Hunt, natives of Ithaca, New York, who migrated to Texas soon after its admission to the American Union as a state. The father there engaged in the stock industry and became one of the best known and most extensive of its prominent land and cattle owners. His son, William attained manhood and was educated in his native state and in 1880 when he was twenty-two years old he came with a drove of cattle to Wyoming, locating at first in Johnson County and two years later removing to Sheridan County, where he accepted a position as foreman of the Grinnell Live Stock Co. he remained with this company until 1884, when he took a contract from a number of cattlemen to keep their stock away from the Indian reservation. After engaging in this hazardous and trying occupation for two years in 1886 he removed to what is now Bighorn County, Wyoming and settled on Shell Creek where he located a ranch and began a promising industry in the raising of stock and in general farming. For six years he continued operations on this site and then moved to the ranch, which he now owns and occupies and on which he has since then, carried on the same branches of husbandry with commendable and fruitful diligence and system. He has a fine ranch of 160 acres well-improved and vigorously cultivated and runs on it an average of nearly 200 cattle of superior breed and quality, keeping his output up to a high standard with all of his stock in prime condition. In public affairs Mr. Hunt has always taken an active interest and has been of great service to northern Wyoming by his enterprise and public spirit. He helped to organize Johnson, Sheridan and Bighorn counties, and in 1896 was elected clerk of Bighorn County on the Democratic ticket, He was the nominee of his party for the same position in 1898 and again in 1902. In 1900 he was on the Democratic presidential electoral ticket and the same year helped to found and become the editor and manager of the Wyoming Dispatch. Through the columns of this paper he advocated the cause of his party with vigor and force and helped materially in making it popular with the electors of the county. In 1883 at Dayton in Sheridan County this state, he was married to Miss Emma L. Whitcomb, a native of Indiana. They have six children, Hudson, Catherine, Emmett, Sylvanus, Edwin and Belle.
