Gilbert, Arizona

CHAPTER I

Cowboys and Sodbusters

T his chapter contains pictures of some late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Gilbert cowboys and sodbusters. John Anderson was Gilbert’s first homesteader who stayed on the land his family acquired by a homestead patent in 1891. He and his family came west to farm and raise white face cattle. His son, Bill Anderson, carried on the tradition,

and even though he also farmed, he truly was a cowboy all his life.The Anderson family had been farmers when they lived in North Dakota and before that in Ontario, Canada.They came to Arizona in 1886.They developed their land into a farm as well as a cattle-feeding opera tion. John Anderson also served on the Gilbert School Board.

K John Anderson (1850–1933)

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