My great grandparents Wilford “Bill” Luce (1864-1948) and Essie Wilson (1878-1927) got married October 24, 1898 in Champaign, Illinois. So, where did a Wyoming rancher meet this woman from south central Illinois?
I’m afraid I might have been responsible for a bit of erroneous information here. I answered an email off the cuff many years ago, saying I seemed to remember they met in Chicago when Bill was back east selling cattle.
It would have made sense. The Chicago cattle market was huge. If there was ever a reason for a Wyoming man to be in Illinois, that’s where he would have been and what he would have been doing there.
Ever since I said it, I’ve had a nagging feeling I might have got it wrong. And, I did.
Now and then, I’ve wondered if maybe Bill and Essie really met at the 1898 World’s Fair in Omaha. That would make sense too. Omaha was also a big cattle market, and it’s not hard to imagine Essie and her mother might have come to Omaha for the World’s Fair.
But, no. That’s wrong too. My grandmother had a story about going to the World’s Fair, but it was the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco. Bill and Essie were long since married. They took their children. It was big deal.
Now I’ve come across my old notes. I see I’ve misremembered the story. According to my grandmother, Vivian (Luce) Swanstrom, her parents Bill and Essie met “at the stock show in Denver.” [1]
The National Western Stock Show is a huge event here in Denver. It takes place every January. Just finished up 2026 last Sunday.
As I do a little digging, I find some interesting background. The National Western Stock Show dates back to only 1906. Bill and Essie were already married then. They married in 1898. Instead, they must have met at the National Stock Growers’ “National Exhibition of Range Cattle,” the precursor to our modern stock show.
Denver had convinced the National Stock Growers Association to hold their 1898 annual convention in Denver. This Exhibition wasn’t planned to be an annual event. It was just a gathering to celebrate the closing of the National Stock Growers’ Convention that year.
The Exhibition was held January 27-28, 1898 at the Denver Union Pacific stockyard grounds near the railroad lines at the South Platte River, north of downtown Denver. Over the years, these stockyard grounds evolved into the famous Denver National Western Complex.
As I research the 1898 Exhibition, I see it was notable for a riot. A barbecue was planned, but tens of thousands of people descended on the stockyard and overwhelmed the food supply. I don’t remember anything about a riot in Grandma’s story, although it would be fun to imagine Bill and Essie meeting in the middle of it. More likely they met at some social occasion.
Why was Bill there? Because he was a cattleman from Wyoming. They typically shipped their cattle to Denver for sale. It was cheaper than shipping to Chicago or Omaha. He’d drive the cattle 60 miles south to the cattle yard at Opal, then ship them to Denver for sale.
Why was Essie there? According to my grandmother, Essie and her mother were visiting “cousins in Denver.” I should know which cousin, but I’m not finding it. I think it might have been Essie’s cousin (her mother’s nephew) John Siegler Howe (1857-1943). He and his family moved to Montana not long after this, but I haven’t found a record of him in Denver. I need to dig in again and get this figured out.
I hope this sets the record straight. Bill and Essie met in Denver, not Chicago. They met in January. Some kind of courtship ensued, then in October of the same year Bill traveled back to Champaign, Illinois and married Essie in the local Baptist church.
- I also remembered another piece wrong, here. I thought I remembered Will Luce married his third wife, his former housekeeper, Amanda (Sizemore) Short (1887-1979), when they were in Denver for the Stock Show. I’ve often joked he cheaped out on a honeymoon. Turns out they were married in Denver on March 3, 1930. The stock show is always in January, so they must have made a special trip for their wedding after all.