The giving tree
Before the park took on its present shape, it was the University of Wyoming Experimental Farm, a place Leland and Gladys made their home starting in 1947.
When UW closed and sold the farm to the city of Gillette and Campbell County in 1984, the couple moved from that location and started a new home on 40 acres east of Gillette off Timber Creek Road.
[...] they made sure, through their generosity, that those trees they planted and the people of the Gillette community will sink deep roots and prosper for many years to come.
Gladys would buy her clothes and outfits in garage sales or off discount racks.
No matter the style and fashions of the day, she'd wear them until they wore out — including that 1960s double polyester — always trying to repair them until they just fell apart.
The trees they planted and rusted hulks of bygone farm implements dot the sagebrush and nearby ridges, a testament of sorts to the passing of time and hope for the future.
Gladys would see an open bale of hay on the side of the road and the passionate horse lover would stop, get her pitchfork and pitch the hay into back of her truck to feed her horses later.
Leland joked that they could eat at Perkins every week, buy their own hay for her many aging horses and still have enough money left over to pay their bills and live comfortably until many, many years beyond their lifetimes.
At one time that included power lines with glass-insulated covers still perched on the wire piled near a stack of massive, thick, stout telephone poles.
Many only became aware of the couple's wealth after their deaths when their estate spread more than $2.8 million — and likely much, much more — to causes in northeast Wyoming through bequests and trusts.
Gladys died in a pickup accident in December 2001 while running to get oats for her horses.
Everyone had always thought it was Leland, who was wounded in World War II and received a Purple Heart, who would go first.
Pickerel later laid his friend to rest when he conducted Leland's funeral service in May 2013.
"Leland's gift will help three generations," he says simply, preferring not to give the actual dollar amount.
Another portion will help pay for needed repairs to the church's youth building.
Leland planted hundreds of trees in the 1950s and 1960s as he took up the reins of the Experimental Farm and he continued to plant and raise more trees around the ridges surrounding their new home in southeast Gillette.
The couple continues to do that now, even in death, with the money they earned and accumulated over their lifetimes.
The Landers' trust includes an inheritance from Gladys' sister and her family's estate and her own wealth, as well as Leland's.
The couple made a conscious decision to spread their wealth after their deaths.
"Leland Landers leaves Gladys Pattinson to Frank Blakeman with greatest regrets," reads the senior class will in the 1939 Mato-Ti.
The senior class prophecy predicted Landers would become a popular writer.
Gladys was involved in many of the high school activities, including band, the pep club, academic clubs and more.
A gentle, reliable soul, he reported and recorded the weather in Gillette for most of his years in the community, before the advent of computers.
Gladys became a school teacher in Gillette in a career that spanned 37 years.
The young girl lived in a trailer park near the Experimental Station and with a friend one day walked over to feed one of the ponies.
After some strong questioning about what the girls were feeding her horses, she took the pair under her wing.
Terri Lesley, director of the Campbell County Public Library, one of the benefactors of the Landers' generosity, echoes their sentiments.
Many lived until the ripe old age of 40 or 50 and died of natural causes.
The two companions died within 100 yards of each other in the same pasture, said Claudia's husband Jim Martinson, who found them.
"Gladys loved people, she loved the community and she loved her horses," Claudia said.
The aging couple may have felt lucky to have found friends of such caring and quality to share their final days with.
On the driveway off Landers Road, there's a metal ranch sign announcing their place.