THE BEECHER RANCH AND STAGECOACH STOP

A little east of the Grass Range area is perhaps the most variously owned and used land and buildings in our entire series.

Long before homesteads, in the 1880s, when stops were about 15 miles apart, the distance covered in one day, it was a stagecoach stop on the Ft. Benton – Billings line. Coaches carried passengers, gold-mining equipment, and supplies for places like Gilt Edge, Flat Willow, and Musselshell. In the picture, "The Stage Station," the foreground building was the hotel, with small rooms along both long sides, the more distant was the stagecoach barn and corral.

As a cattle ranch...