Robert Barney is Utah’s last mountain man, and he sat down to share stories and meat with Utah Stories.
“Somebody asked me a while ago, ‘Why do you go by Barney?’ I told him ‘Well, I’m just about as rare as a big purple dinosaur.’ I’m the last of my kind.”
Robert Barney has been a resident of Koosharem, Utah since he settled here in 1953 to start his family. Barney had a wife and four sons, but then disaster struck: in the matter of just a few years his wife and oldest son both died.
Left to raise his boys on his own Barney didn’t let tragedy define the story of his life; instead he took control and raised his sons the same way he had been raised.
Electricity, running water and indoor plumbing weren’t necessities to Barney – they were luxuries – and he and his boys lived just fine without. Barney moved into what was once a grain mill and spent years renovating the old structure. He added rooms, storage, a new roof and wood burning stoves for warmth. Koosharem’s very cold winters with deep snow must have made life difficult, but a sign in Barney’s cabin reads “If you are lucky enough to be in the mountains, you are lucky enough!”
Barney showed me his cabin. “This used to be my bedroom until I needed to make a trophy room. Up here is where I installed a septic tank; before that we just had an outhouse.” Today Barney has running water and electricity. He’s still an avid hunter and shared his delicious elk jerky with me. “You could share that with your wife when you get home, but I doubt you’ll make it that far without eating it all.” He was right; it was too good. Sorry, honey.
Engraving on a elk bone reads: “Here lives a man from North Panguitch who at times uses pretty rough language. He’s ugly and mean and he’s a fighting machine. This man that now lives here in Greenwich.”
Barney’s stories and cookouts are famous. He was once an oil field worker, “Until they automated and dumbed-down everything. I like using my brain, but now there’s no brains needed. So I got out of it.” From recent events, it seems the oil industry could use workers “who use their brains.”
Hummmmm…His wife the boys mom divorsed him , his son did pass …it was a second wife who killed her self . and whould a real mountain man use paper plates when his sons were little just so he did not have to do dishes come off it robert feeling sorry for ourself still
Someone at Utah Stories should tell my mountain man story. I lived in a converted grainery in Logan Utah. My brother lived next store in an old, converted calving barn. Robert’s place looks very similar to ours right down to the exact microwave perched atop his refrigerator. Lots of exposed wood, wires and pert near everything had its place … just like Robert’s. It’s a good way to live, but not for everyone I imagine. I wish I could upload a photo of our “barns.” Memories include the re-purposing and recovering of some old counter stools with moose-printed fabric and lopping off a corner of the kitchen counter because it got in the way of the refrigerator door.
While I enjoyed your story on Robert Barney, I was sorry that you missed talking to the amazing Bonnie Bell, also of Greenwich. I’m sure she would have been happy to share her extraordinary life with you. She is an inspiration to everyone in the valley. I have long wished that someone would write her story. She is the most positive, upbeat person you will ever meet, considering what she has been through in her long life. She first came through the valley as a baby in a covered wagon. As a child she had to eat her dinner outside instead of with the rest of her family around the dinner table because she was “too ugly” to eat with them. She lost a husband, the father of her five daughters, in a logging truck accident, her son in Viet Nam, and a daughter who died after a tragic fall. Her house burned down during one Christmas season. She lost another husband due to a heart attack. Most recently she has battled melanoma, which she miraculously beat. I believe she was able to do so because of her attitude towards life. She told me of the time her husband got a job in Salt Lake several decades ago. They didn’t have any money for a place until he was paid, so they lived out of their car while parked next to a city park. She bathed her daughters in the park restroom. She laughs as she tells it and says, “I never once thought we were ‘homeless’.” So come back by and talk with Bonnie. You can’t miss her house. It’s the one proudly flying Old Glory and, on occasion, a bald eagle can be seen perched in the front yard tree.