A collection of bighorn sheep skulls with roots stretching back nearly 150 years in the Salmon River canyon has found a permanent home at the Jack O’Connor Hunting Heritage and Education Center in Lewiston — completing a journey that took the relics from Idaho to Las Vegas, then to a New Hampshire mansion, and finally back to the state where they belong.
At the center of the story is Doug Boggan, a 75-year-old cattle rancher from Riggins, Idaho, who spent years working to reunite the scattered skulls with Idaho. “Horns do not belong on the East Coast,” Boggan said. “They’re Idaho horns.”
A Canyon Legend and His Collection
The collection traces its origin to John “Johnny” Carrey, born in 1914 on the South Fork of the Salmon River, who spent a lifetime in the remote canyon country that produced some of Idaho’s most storied bighorn sheep populations. By the time Carrey reached his seventies, he had accumulated between 75 and 110 bighorn skulls — most gathered over decades of living and working in that rugged terrain.
Carrey was meticulous. He recorded dates, locations, and names on the skulls he kept intact, creating what amounts to a field log of bighorn sheep history spanning the Salmon River country. He also carved some of the horns into belt buckles and spurs for friends and family, treating the material as both natural history and personal craft.
Also woven into the collection’s history is Buckskin Bill — the legendary Sylvan Ambrose Hart — who settled at Five Mile Bar on the Salmon River in 1932 and lived there until his death in 1980. The collection’s documented timeline spans roughly 147 years.
Boggan first met Carrey in 1988 and maintained a connection with the old canyon rancher for years. That same year, a New Hampshire businessman named Robert “Bob” Senter approached Carrey and purchased approximately 40 of the bighorn skulls for $10,000. Senter transported the horns illegally to Las Vegas and then shipped them on to his home in Plaistow, New Hampshire — where they remained for roughly two and a half decades.
Carrey died in 2002. More than a decade later, Boggan tracked down Senter and purchased the remaining 38 skulls for approximately $2,000 in 2014 — bringing that portion of the collection back to Idaho. Senter died in 2017.
Brought Back to Idaho
The legal and logistical road to reuniting the skulls was not simple. Scott Olds, a retired Idaho attorney, advised Boggan on the legal questions surrounding the skulls’ history and transfer. Randy Orzalli, a former science teacher from California, loaned Boggan the money needed to complete the 2014 purchase. Orzalli later said that Boggan’s determination to preserve the collection as a whole and make it scientifically accessible was the right call. “Doug’s vision to keep the collection together and available for science was exactly the right vision,” Orzalli said.
The collection’s significance extends well beyond sentiment. Retired Idaho Fish and Game biologist Jim White estimated that a single skull from the collection could fetch around $20,000 on the market. For context, hunters have paid more than $300,000 for bighorn tags in special auction tags, while Idaho issues only roughly 100 bighorn permits each year — a reflection of how rare and prized the species remains across the West.
The skulls are now housed at the Jack O’Connor Hunting Heritage and Education Center in Lewiston, where they will be preserved and available for scientific study. The center, dedicated to the legacy of one of the most celebrated hunting writers in American history, offers an appropriate home for artifacts that document a vanishing chapter of Idaho’s wild sheep heritage.
What Comes Next
With the collection now secured in Lewiston, researchers and educators will have access to documented bighorn sheep specimens covering more than a century of population history from the Salmon River drainage. The Jack O’Connor Center has not announced specific exhibition or research plans, but the availability of the skulls for scientific study could contribute to ongoing bighorn sheep conservation and management work across Idaho. For more Idaho community and natural heritage news, visit Idaho News. The Idaho National Guard’s recent community outreach in the area is also worth following — including a Black Hawk helicopter visit to Lapwai School that brought military history and education to local students.