Two Green River Valley Centennial Ranches – the Rees Triangle 5 Ranch and the Springman Ranch – are to be honored by the Green River Valley Cattlewomen at the Green River Valley Cattlemen’s Association banquet on Saturday, March 2, and at the Wyoming State Fair.

Sponsoring this recognition at State Fair will be Wyoming State Historical Preservation Office, Wyoming Department of Agriculture, Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Wyoming Wool Growers Association and Wyoming Rural Electric Association. Forty-five families in the Green River Valley and Hoback Basin have received the Centennial Ranch award for the same family working on the land for one hundred years.

The two Centennial Ranch families to be honored in 2024 will each be highlighted with historic photos, courtesy of the families, in the Feb. 8 and Feb. 15 Pinedale Roundups.

This week, the Rees Triangle 5 Ranch.

Rees-Triangle 5 Ranch

The Rees Triangle 5 Ranch west of Big Piney, Wyoming, has been in the Rees family since 1897. Daniel O. Roberson, who homesteaded on the Green River at the mouth of Fontenelle Creek in 1897, was Charles F. Roberson’s first cousin. Charles Roberson bought the place from his cousin Daniel and Charles and his wife, Emma, were living on Fontenelle Creek in 1900.

Avis Roberson Polson, Charles’s daughter, became the owner of the Fontenelle ranch after she and Olof Polson were married in 1917. Their daughter, Emma, married Merrill Rees in 1945 and they were on the Fontenelle ranch until the government flooded the ranch for the Fontenelle Reservoir in the early 1960s. Emma and Merrill bought the Arthur Homer Place in 1962 and moved cattle, equipment, horses and all other ranch items to the Homer Place on Middle Piney Creek.

Merrill and Emma’s children became owners of the ranch in 1982. In 2012, the ranch was named the Rees Triangle 5 Ranch.