Pierre Wibaux - Legacy

Legacy

Wibaux's "W-Bar Ranch" was so successful that a community of employees, cowboys, cattlemen and their families emerged from this business and grouped to form a village then a town, named Wibaux after Pierre himself. Wibaux County, surrounding the town of Wibaux, is also named after him. The town which emerged from the Wibaux's gold-miner community in the Black Hills region also bore the mark of Pierre Wibaux as he named the town after his beloved and native Roubaix. St Peter's Catholic Church in Wibaux is named after him. The original church that he had built is still standing, although a newer building replaced it in the 1960s. Supposedly, when Wibaux's father visited him from France, he was upset to find that there was no church for his son and others to worship in. A twice-size statue of Pierre Wibaux stands on a hill west of Wibaux overlooking the town, looking north toward the ranch twelve miles away, and some of his remains are contained in the base of the statue. His wife Nellie and son Cyril spent the rest of their lives in France, and are buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. For his doctoral work at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Donald Hugh Welsh went to France and consulted original documents made available to him by the Wibaux family.