The 1880's Ranch, Anaconda

The 1880's Ranch, Anaconda, Montana

If you like exploring on horseback, finding bighorn sheep high up in the mountains, herding cattle, and enjoying dinner in a saloon, then this is the vacation for you.

I flew into Butte, Montana, and met Donna Tatko, my roommate for the week. We stayed overnight in the historic section of Butte and, after breakfast, explored the town. We stumbled upon the Dumas Hotel, designed and built as a brothel in 1890, doing business until 1982, and now a museum. It had once been in the midst of a thriving 5-block "red light" district – thriving because Butte's population swelled to over 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century. By 1912, it was the largest city in Montana, due to the many copper and silver mines in the region and the smelting done in nearby Anaconda. Sherri Jamison, owner of the 1880's Ranch, picked us up around noon. Sherri had moved out west to build an authentic town, resembling one from the 1800s. It required hours of research, moving old houses to her location, and building new ones, made to look old. Her daily chores included everything from stenciling a bedroom wall and driving a backhoe to giving shots to a sick horse and chasing stray cows.

Leaving Butte, we drove through Anaconda and turned onto a dirt road that wound its way up a pass to the ranch – a typical-looking small town right out of the Old West on over 1300 acres adjacent to the Deerlodge National Forest in the foothills of the Rockies. But with all the conveniences of home!

Nestled at the foot of rolling hills and evergreen-covered mountains, the little collection of buildings lined both sides of a hardened dirt street. A tepee, saloon, jail, sod house, cord-wood house, Indian bark lodge and dugout faced a sheepherder's wagon, boarding house, bath house, log cabin, gift/mercantile store and livery. At one end, overlooking the town, was a church. Donna and I stayed in the log cabin – rustic, but spacious and very attractive with colorful quilts on queen-size log beds and saddle blanket throw rugs on the scrubbed wood floors. There were wrought iron lamps on sturdy pine dressers and tables, chairs, and our own modern bathroom with pedestal sink and refinished antique claw-and-ball foot tub with shower!

That afternoon Sherri drove us to a rodeo in the nearby town of Drummond, we saw our first bighorn sheep – a small herd of ewes and lambs grazing in an open field, and took a late horseback ride up into the hills above our little town. The ride was just an introduction to the scenic country of southwestern Montana. Beautiful purple lupine and colorful, odd rocks – green, red-striped, or two-tone red and gray – caught my eye, but the highlight was surprising a napping coyote. A wonderful dinner of brook trout, rice with black olives and herbs, pasta salad and peach crumb cake with ice cream was served in the saloon that evening. Saturated by our experiences and stuffed by dinner, Donna and I walked back to our cabin and snuggled under the warm quilts.

After breakfast the next morning we caught and saddled our horses for that day – "Fellow," a chestnut, for Donna and "Bandit," a buckskin for me. ("Snow," a gray Arabian cross, and "Apple," an Appaloosa, were my other mounts for the week.) Following Sherri up into the hills through Moose Draw, we rode along a stream and high up into the mountains where we finally reached a peak overlooking Lost Creek far below us. Backtracking, we stopped to have a picnic lunch on a large flat rock. The view was breathtaking with mountains, one after another, disappearing into the distance.

Taking a circuitous route from Deerlodge National Forest back down to the 1880's Ranch, we washed up, had a delicious dinner of stew, salad, and rolls, and drove into Anaconda (less than 15 minutes away) to see a movie at the Washoe Theatre. Built in the 1930s, the Art Deco style building is on the National Register and has been designated by the Smithsonian as the fifth most beautiful theater in the country.

We spent nine hours in the saddle the next day with a 20-minute stop for lunch! A small herd of thirty cows and calves had strayed onto a neighboring ranch so we had to ride over and move them. Reluctant to leave the lush area, the cattle tried circling back, but, finally, we were able to herd them to a creek and nice grass on their own range.

That night our showers felt like heaven! We were entertained during dinner by a piano and accordion player who joined us afterward with his wife for coffee and dessert.

The next three days we rode high up into the mountains past numerous abandoned mines, navigating steep ridges, through Ponderosa pine forests, following trails that eventually disappeared, and, often, blazing our own. Crossing a steep slope of loose shale, we dismounted and led our horses because of the treacherous footing.

We were much higher than the ranch and the air was thin. At times the climb was so steep that we traversed back and forth rather than going straight up, stopping often to give the horses a breather. The views were magnificent and we could see the whole town of Anaconda spread out in the valley far below us – the huge smokestack of the old smelter rising from a knoll at one end of town.

And then, we encountered a herd of 30 – 40 bighorn sheep, all rams. We rode to less than 100 yards of them before they trotted off in a long line across a rise, their heads with large curved horns held high. Farther up, we surprised a smaller group, again all rams, and rode even closer. The ground here was pock-mocked with dust bowls where they had rolled and napped.

Our long ride home was made longer when a thunderstorm rolled in over the mountains and eventually caught up with us. We watched it approaching, dark clouds with flashes of lightning and sheets of rain drenching the mountains in the distance. Putting on slickers and ponchos, we had to take cover and wait for it to pass. Sharp cracks of lightning and loud rumbles of thunder were soon followed by stinging hail.

When the lightning and hail subsided, we continued down out of the mountains just as the wind picked up. Eerie clouds of mist formed and rose out of the valleys below and in front of us. We were soon chilled and hardly noticed as we picked our way through a graveyard of pines. Trees, uprooted long ago with trunks, branches and roots bleached white by the sun, looked like driftwood. Exploring the Mt. Haggin Wildlife & Wilderness Area our last afternoon, we rode through an old lumber camp, its low-roofed dwellings in great disrepair. Nearby was a flume that once carried the lumber down out of the mountains on a gushing stream of water to a road where horse-drawn wagons, and later, trucks, carried it away.

Emerging from a wooded area we stumbled upon a giant rock garden – a meadow with huge boulders and colorful wild flowers – red Indian paintbrush and a kaleidoscope of yellow, blue, purple, pink and white blossoms. We dismounted, pulled out our cameras and tried to capture its unusual beauty on film.

While visiting the 1880's Ranch, we only scratched the surface of things to do in the area. There are ghost towns, great fishing lakes, a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course with black sand bunkers in Anaconda, plays in nearby Phillipsburg, museums and a variety of other outdoor sports – biking, hiking, boating and more. Your first visit will only whet your appetite to visit again – and again!

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