From the Rocky Mountain Region Bulletin
Volume 20 – Number 10 / October 1937

James T. Saban was born April 22, 1901, at Hyattsville, Wyoming. He attended the Polytechnic Institute at Billings, Montana for three years and later took the 90 day short course in the School of Forestry, University of Montana.

Saban worked on trail construction on the Bighorn Forest in 1922 and later served as foreman on this activity on the Chugach Forest in Alaska.  Before passing the Forest Ranger’s examination in October 1923, he also had some experience in fire suppression and insect control work on the Selway, Lolo, Flathead and Coeur d’ Alene Forests in Region 1 and the Wyoming Forest in Region 4.

He was appointed as Assistant Forest Ranger May 1, 1924 and was in charge of the Keystone and Snake River districts, and also on timber sale supervision on the Medicine Bow Forest for approximately five years.  He resigned on account of ill health, and on July 1, 1931, he was reinstated as Senior Forest Ranger on the Bena District, Chippewa National Forest, Minnesota.  A strenuous fire season on the Chippewa in 1933 resulted in a nervous breakdown, and, at his request, Saban was relieved from the responsibilities of a district ranger and assigned to CCC work as a technical foreman.

Saban later resigned on account of health and returned to Wyoming. During 1937 he was employed by the Taggart Construction Company and his health had improved to such an extent that he applied for reinstatement to a foremanship in the CCC.  He was assigned to Tensleep Camp F-35 on August 2, and had been on duty only three weeks when he met his death with Clayton, Hale and enrollees Gerdes, Griffith, Mayabb and Rodgers in the inferno in Clayton Gulch.

Saban was a man of pleasing personality, a hard worker with lots of experience in practical forestry and fire fighting.  He was aware of the constant danger in connection with forest fires and attacked them with bravery and judgment.  It is the irony of fate that forest fires, which were, in part, responsible for Saban giving up a promising forestry career in Region 9, were responsible for his death near his old home in the Bighorn Basin.

Saban is survived by his wife, Mrs. Ione Georgia Saban, who has returned to her former home in Ashland, Wisconsin, also by two children, Jack 7 and Louise, 5 and his mother, Mrs. Bertha Saban of Hyattsville, Wyoming.  He was buried at Hyattsville, near the mountains he loved so well.

Note: The old Ranger Station at Tensleep was named the Saban Ranger Station after James.

In addition, James’s father was George Saban one of the men responsible for planning and executing the infamous Spring Creek Raid in April of 1909 during the cattle – sheep wars.  George Saban married Bertha Whaley the daughter of W.T. Whaley, a Shell, Wyoming Cattleman.  They had six children. As noted James was born in 1901. (A Vast Amount of Trouble – A History of the Spring Creek Raid by John W. Davis / University of Oklahoma Press / Copyright 1993)