Many Hands Over Many Years
Work Crew
Doc and Emily Ridgway started Elk Creek Ranch in 1957. Central to the ranch program they designed were all things having to do with horses and real ranch life, including work. Over the years ranchers have repaired old and built new facilities to the point where we like to say ranchers' "fingerprints" are all over the ranch, making them a part of not just the history of the place but also of the ranch itself. The summer of 23 ranchers wrote or built new chapters to a number of our facilities. We want to share those stories during the coming months.
Homesteader Cabins
In 1957 we built new bunkhouses and a rec hall to greet the first ranchers, but we had several seriously dilapidated homesteader's cabins which we wanted to overhaul. Both needed new roofs and structural work, which became one of our morning work caper They became sleeping cabins for several of Doc and Em's children, a niece, and a nephew.
Moving a Cabin
A number of years later we needed space for a staff cabin. We sadly demolished one of the two cabins, but we decided to move the other cabin up the hill through the bunkhouses to create a space to keep our supplies for backpacking. Homesteaders moved old cabins by pulling them with horses over logs laid out for the cabins to roll over. We had the luxury of powering our effort with a three-quarter ton pickup, which felt a bit like cheating.
Now a Mill
The sleeping porch/backpacking supply building in time was moved again where it became the shelter for our portable mill. For years it protected the mill as ranchers produced much of the lumber for our ranch projects. It was a great story until a very large wind gust coming from the opposite direction of the normal winds lifted the shelter off its base flipping in twice and destroying it.
Yet another Update!
ECR ranchers started the work of replacing the mill shelter toward the end of the Summer of 2022 and came close to finishing it last summer. The finishing touches will be added next summer. And, so, the remains of a homesteaders cabin became a sleeping porch, a backpacking storage center, a mill shelter, and a much sturdier mill shelter all through the work and with the hands of generations of ranchers.
