B. W. Allred

Berten Wendell Allred, was a prominent range conservationist and author. He was born in Moab, Utah, January 17, 1904, to Birten and Sarah Anna Johnson Allred. He was given the name Berten so people would know the difference between him and his father, Birt. However, he was known as Bill or B. W. Allred most of his life.
He was the eldest of Birt and Anna's 13 children. Ten of the children lived to adulthood. As a boy, he assisted with the family cattle and sheep and also often drove the second horse-drawn wagon team for the Allred Transportation Company when it operated between Moab and Thompson Springs. The brothers, Birt and Wilson Allred, had the mail contract from the railroad at Thompson Springs to Moab. Later they received the contract for Monticello, Utah.
He graduated from Utah Agriculture College (now Utah State University) in 1926 with degrees in ecology and agronomy. In 1931 he received his master's degree in animal husbandry and range management from the college. Later he studied ecology at the University of Nebraska.
In addition to his early ranching activities in Moab, he operated a partnership ranch, raising cattle and sheep on private and public land in Utah and Wyoming. He also served as a county agent in two stock raising counties in Colorado. In 1935, while living in Colorado Springs, he joined the new U.S. Soil Conservation Service, first in charge of the range work for the Northern Plains states and in 1945 in a similar capacity for the Western Gulf Region comprising the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
He wrote widely for livestock journals and other magazines on livestock and grassland management problems. He was the author of "Practical Grassland Management." This book stressed the importance of grass for conservation. It was widely used as a text in this field for 30 years.
He married Alice Worthington of Grantsville, Utah. They met while he was driving his sheep from a summer range in Wyoming to a winter range in Nevada. He had his mail sent General Delivery to the Grantsville Post Office. She was working in the Post Office. They were married in September 1930. She accompanied him on his many moves in the United States, plus Saudi Arabia and Argentina.
While the family lived in Fort Worth, Texas, they also purchased a farm in Ellis County where they had cattle and a horse for their two daughters, Alice Ann, born in Rapid City, South Dakota, and Doris Jean, born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Both daughters then attended school in Midlothian, Texas, during the two and a half years the family lived on the farm.
In 1954, he was transferred from Fort Worth to Washington, D. C. He was then Head Range Conservationist for the Soil Conservation Service. The family purchased a 400-acre farm near Cumberland, Maryland, where they again raised cattle. However, they lived in Washington where Bill worked and their daughters attended high school.
His work took him to many parts of the world. He was often photographed with his counterparts in their native dress. In these photographs, Bill was always wearing his native dress, cowboy boots and a western hat.
He was a former president of the American Range Society, Sheriff of the Potomac Corral of the Westerners, a member of the Soil Conservation Society of America, and the Utah State Historical Society. For two years after his retirement in 1965, Mr. Allred was a consultant with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Saudi Arabia and Argentina. He was also a consultant to the Agency for International Development in Mali, Africa.
In 1972, his health was beginning to fail and he and Alice sold the Maryland farm where they lived after they returned from Argentina. They moved to Tooele, Utah, where he continued as a range management consultant. He died in Tooele on December 14, 1976.