FOUR OF A KIND – RANCHES NEAR COHAGEN

Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR (4!) ranches this week, all in the vicinity of Cohagen, MT.

Quiz Question 1: Where is Cohagen? All true Montanans should know.

Answer: Southeast of Jordan on Highway 59 and near Little Dry Creek, a queer name for a body of water.

Quiz Question 2: How did Cohagen get its name? Unless you do some web cheating, this will stump you, for sure.

Answer: (We cheated) In 1905 the settlement had no name but somehow had a post office. Before zip codes began, July 1, 1963, how would someone send a letter to a place that lacked a name? It also had a postmaster, Harry Harris, and he christened the settlement with his mother's maiden name.

Thanks to the Northern Pacific Railroad's, which owned considerable land in Garfield County, advertising how great was this farming land for $5 to $25 per acre, by 1915 Cohagen became a busy place with stores, school, hotels, restaurant, even a doctor and a dentist. The Depression and a series of droughts in the 1930s found most residents moving west. All these abandoned ranches were familiar to Walter Raymond Beecher, who owned one near Cohagen.

Quiz Question 3. Who was Ray Beecher?

Answer: Ray Beecher, the subject of last week's article, like most who lived near Cohagen, raised sheep, cattle and horses.

Observing over the years, the decay of the empty buildings, he determined to memorialize them through photos and hand-written notes which he shared with us when we visited him. He then lived at what he called his retirement ranch, (last week's article– the Stagecoach Stop), which he bought near Grass Range. His final stop in life was the Valle Vista nursing home in Lewistown, and he is buried at the veterans' cemetery in Miles City.

Wind Was a Friend

Jacko Ranch

Little is known about this ruin outside Jordan. George Davidson owned the place and willed it to his daughters, Elizabeth Clark of Forsyth and Patricia Langohr of Bozeman. The painting, even with the ravages of a harsh winter produced a stark beauty. Ranch life was never easy, and neighbors were few and far between. The sentinel windmill meant that they harnessed a bit of the usual bitter adversary, wind, and drew sustaining water from the earth.

At one of our first years here we used copies of this painting as our Christmas card, and to one family I added to our note, "This is our new house. We enjoy it very much, but the plumbing is primitive." Not long after, we received a letter from those people, "I don't think we could live like that."

Temple of Ceres

Swanson Ranch

West of Cohagen, near the Little Dry Creek, these poetic ruins originally were built around 1915, Cohagen's booming, halcyon days. It was later owned by Carl Olson, the man that moved on to the Grass Range area and lost everything when his entire sheep flock was destroyed in a snowdrift. (See last week's article.)

The Lambs Are Safe Tonight

Charlie Coil Ranch.

Neither is much known of this ranch located near Cohagen. However, the significance of the painting, executed on old barn wood, is not in ownership of the land, but that it represents an on-going controversy; the protection of livestock versus the freedom of wildlife. A rancher told a wildlife magazine that he harbored no hatred for wolves and coyotes and truly felt terrible when he killed one. At the same time, those animals live by devouring his livelihood, and he wished that instead of contributing a buck or two to wildlife organizations, the do-gooders had to pay an amount equaling his losses. Then, they might understand his point of view.

These predator carcasses at the Coil Ranch were part of Charlie's program to protect his property.

Winter Solitude

Pete Ringstevdt Ranch

This building was located in the south pasture of the Beecher Ranch near Cohagen and owned by Pete Ringstevdt. When Pete passed away, Ray purchased the structure. When they moved to Grass Range, they decided to do a good deed. They knew the roads were dangerous in winter – ours is even dangerous in summer – and travelers could be stranded and die, so instead of boarding up the old home, they stocked it with dried food and a supply of stove wood. However, vandals stole the food and most everything else, even the stone lids off the old cook stove, and left the house a shamble; a sorry commentary upon our times.

The spelling, "Ringstevdt," received from Mr. Beecher, is very probably a corruption of "Ringstvedt," because "tvedt" is a common suffix to Norwegian names.