It was 1933, the drought that plagued Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska spread to the southern part Wyoming. Hank Cooper had a decision to make about what to do with Timber Creek Ranch. Crops failed, the horse herd depleted and host of other problems that continued to plague the ranch. His cousin, John Patrick Donovan "JP", after visiting Timber Creek encouraged him to migrate east where Hank's grandfather settled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Opportunity, land, and game were plentiful. It offered Hank and his family a second chance. Hank was dealing with a new set of problems everyday. The ranch was showing its age and everywhere he turned there was no hope of saving what had been in his family for several decades. He thought perhaps he'd travel back to where his grandfather had been successful. If JP were even half right, it would be better than looking at the dour consequences of what was keeping him depressed. He, like many of the other ranchers, wished it had rained early on in the spring rather than now as he looked out over several hundred acres of corn and wheat fields burnt to a crisp from the lack of adequate rainfall and from a merciless sun over the last several years. The crash of the financial markets back in '29 had a detrimental effect on Green Springs, as well as both the Henderson Ranch and Timber Creek. His mother and his siblings with the help of Marsden, the general foreman, turned over the bulk of the land to the U. S. Department of the Interior for a new federal park and to the state of Wyoming for a park named in honor of Chet Henderson, the first person to settle this part of the state.His brother, HJ, had recently visited from his home in Butte, Montana, and informed Hank that it was time to consider doing something with Timber Creek as it had become a financial drain on Cooper Holdings. HJ had decided along with his mother, who was the head of the family business, to stop infusing money into the failing ranch.
