Grapevine said:
I can get you a video, Tap. We've been talking about putting it on DVD. My parents have the movie, so I'll visit with them to get a copy for you.
You are right about the road out to the ranch. It's 4 miles of gumbo (even over a butte at one point) and made for many interesting trips! It really was a great place to learn to drive!
In reference to your photos... I could tell you a story about each one, but wanted to point out the one with the tree on the butte. When we moved in 1998, there was only the one tree, but it appears another one is growing now. (How a cedar tree is growing out of the top of a butte when there aren't any other cedar trees close by, is a mystery to me.) When my sisters and I were growing up, that butte/tree was a point of reference if we were ever "lost" on the ranch.
And to JF Ranch, the tales of the Indians running the buffalo off the banks along the Jumpoff are true. You'd have to see more of the terrain to get a better idea, but I can tell you there is a lot of evidence that these stampedes and slaughters happened in the day.
The movie would be great to have. Let me know if you can do it. I assume you may know who I am. I thought you were your mother at first. Now you need to tell me if you are K,R, or M?
There are 3 reasons that the ranch over there appeals to me. I like G. very well, I like working and looking around that country, then there is the history.
I have always loved the stories that the oldtimers of the area tell, and I am curious as to the history of our area. Your post makes me think of several unique aspects of that ranch. Please correct anything I may have wrong Grapevine.
First, there is the Buffalo Jump of course, but George A Custer's scouting party went right through there a few years before the Little Bighorn. I think they were on their way to the Black Hills from the fort at Bismarck ND. I heard that the butte that is just S. of the house (less than 1/4 mi.) had one side mined plumb apart by Custer's men looking for Gold or some other kind of mineral. It is very evident where they tore the butte open. I think they had 100 wagons or some such # and they built makeshift roads through there. They also named several landmarks on their trip through. I would liked to have seen them get all those wagons over the Jumpoff.
The Pine Springs pasture to the west is one of my favorite places in the country. I have been told that the early day cattle companies used it for a line camp (I think maybe the Turkey Track, or maybe the Mill Iron Ranch). It was the edge of their range, and I think they might have also used it to keep the CY ranch cattle from coming onto their range. The CY was owned by the former governer of Wyoming CY Carey possibly? That was in the 1880's.
Then there is the fact that Charlie Wilson (the owner of the famous bucking horse Tipperary) owned the ranch in the early 1900's. After he purchased Tipperary, the ranch became Tipperary's running grounds, and Tipperary died on the ranch, did he not? Tipperary would rival Steamboat and Midnight for one of the early era's most famous bucking horses.
Then after Wilson's sold out your relative Dick H. owned the ranch, and he was one of the men that survived Iwo Gima. Could you tell that story better than I could?
And of course there is your old man. :wink: If we could get him to telling stories here, he would have a captive audience. He has an unlimited supply of interesting stories. You know, I bought the book about Chris LeDoux last winter, GOLD BUCKLE DREAMS, and I learned that your dad was a good friend of his, and traveled with him on the rodeo circuit. They both went to college together in Casper right?
Hope I didn't bore everybody to death with my ramblings, but a lot came to my mind after Grapevine's posts.
