Gems Of The West

AMERICA’S DUDE RANCHES: AN ENDURING AND ENDEARING TRADITION.

- Susan L. Ebert

Hewn from history and etched lovingly into our souls, the mythology of the Old West thrives at today’s historic dude ranches, hailing from their origins more than 140 years ago. Woven into the tapestry of this great American tradition are some of the West’s most romantic icons: cowboys, horses, cattle, magnificent scenery, abundant wildlife, and Teddy Roosevelt himself.

DUDE RANCHING’S GENESIS

In the great post-Civil War cattle boom, aspiring ranchers flocked to the verdant open range in Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas—among them, three earnest brothers from Pittsburg: Howard, Willis, and Alden Eaton who founded a horse and cattle ranch in Medora, North Dakota, in 1879. By the late 1870s, the extirpation of tens of millions of American bison had opened up grazing lands for these and other budding entrepreneurs, whose cattle grew fat in the vast grasslands that once teemed with bison. Howard, brimming with pride in their newly acquired paradise and with an innate gift for hospitality, loved sharing the Eaton Ranch with guests from back East, and in 1883, put together a pack trip to Yellowstone. When Howard’s friends offered to chip in on expenses for that trip, his idea to charge folks for ranch stays took root.

The Eatons found they could derive a decent income from guests from back East who hungered to experience the West— with its accoutrements of leather chaps, jingling spurs, 10-gallon hats, and six-shooters. Buffalo Bill’s first Wild West Show, which opened in 1883 in Omaha, Nebraska, and in three short years burned a swath to Madison Square Garden, further inflamed the public with a fever for the frontier West, and helped create even more of a market for ranches willing to host “dudes,” as these Eastern city slickers came to be known.