For the ranch near Cody, Wyoming

Cody, Wyoming

Cody is a city in Park County, Wyoming, United States. It is named after William Frederick Cody, primarily known as Buffalo Bill, from William Cody's part in the creation of the original town. The population was 9,520 at the 2010 census...

 formerly owned by Buffalo Bill Cody, see T E Ranch Headquarters

T E Ranch Headquarters

The T E Ranch Headquarters, near Cody, Wyoming, is a log ranch house that belonged to Buffalo Bill Cody. The house may have originally been built by homesteader Bob Burns prior to 1895, when Cody acquired the ranch...

The TA Ranch was the site of the principal events of the Johnson County Range War in 1892. The TA was established in 1882 as one of the first ranch

Ranch

A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...

es in Johnson County, Wyoming. The TA is the only intact site associated with the range war, with trenches used by both sides still visible and scars on the nearby buildings. The ranch also documents the expansion and development of cattle ranching in Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

.

Description

The ranch is located near the North Branch of Crazy Woman Creek

Crazy Woman Creek

Crazy Woman Creek is a creek in the United States, in Johnson County, Wyoming.There are several legends about the name. It was the site of a trading post and the site of battles in the American Indian Wars. It was also a locale of the Johnson County War....

 south of Buffalo, Wyoming

Buffalo, Wyoming

Buffalo is a city in Johnson County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 3,900 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Johnson County...

, with the Big Horn Mountains

Big Horn Mountains

The Big Horn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles northward on the Great Plains...

 to the west. The property is significant for both its role as the scene of a three-day siege in the Johnson County Range War and as an example of an intact ranching operation.

Significant buildings include:

• Barn: A log-and-frame building built in 1882 and expanded in 1904. The barn was originally 60 feet (18.3 m) by 40 feet (12.2 m), expanded to 75 feet (22.9 m) by 60 feet (18.3 m) in 1904. The barn was the chief venue in the 1892 shootout and preserves gunports cut in the upper north and south walls during the battle.
• Ranch House: Also built in 1892, the one story log ranch house features logs sawn with a circular saw
  Circular saw
  The circular saw is a machine using a toothed metal cutting disc or blade. The term is also loosely used for the blade itself. The blade is a tool for cutting wood or other materials and may be hand-held or table-mounted. It can also be used to make narrow slots...
  
   and nailed into vertical corner logs. Even interior partitions are log. The major rooms have outside doors on the south side, for a total of five doors, a result of the unusual plan with no internal hallway. Rooms have 9 feet (2.7 m) ceilings, and the living room and western bedroom have tongue and groove wainscoting. A partial basement excavated in 1910 houses a boiler. The house was also involved in the gunfight and retains bullet scars.
• Root Cellar: A large 25 feet (7.6 m) by 35 feet (10.7 m) root cellar was built in 1882.
• Cook House: The L-shaped log cookhouse was built in 1904 in two phases.
• Milk Barn: The log milk barn was built in 1915.
• Meat House:The 16 feet (4.9 m) by 16 feet (4.9 m) meat house was also built in 1915 of logs.
• Hog House:The 1915 log hog house was divided between hog pens and a room for processing and cutting pork and hides.
• Cattle Shed: The open-faced cattle shed was built in 1915 with board and batten walls and a corrugated metal roof.

Other contributing structures include a granary, a garage, outhouses and a hen house.

Of particular note are the bunkers or breastworks built during the 1892 siege. The cattlemen's hired guns dug trenches on an elevated location to the west of the barn that commanded a view of the surrounding country. The local ranchers, homesteaders and townspeople who surrounded them built their own breastworks around the ranch. At least ten breastworks were built and three remain.

History

The ranch was established in 1882 by Dr. William Harris of Laramie

Laramie, Wyoming

Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 30,816 at the . Located on the Laramie River in southeastern Wyoming, the city is west of Cheyenne, at the junction of Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 287....

, who had purchased the brand and herd of Tom Alsop, also of Laramie. Harris moved the herd to Johnson County to set up the TA Ranch, remaining in Laramie to continue his medical practice, with Charles Ford as ranch manager. As such, Harris was an absentee landowner and was politically aligned with the larger cattle barons. In 1892 a party of hired guns paid by the Wyoming Stockmen's Association embarked on a raid to hunt down "rustlers" who were supposedly stealing cattle from the stockmen. However, the mercenary company was resented by the smaller landowners prevalent in northern Wyoming and were confronted by a large group of local settlers and cowboys. The gunmen (frequently referred to as "invaders") retreated to the TA Ranch, which they proceeded to fortify. Soon, about fifty invaders were surrounded by almost four hundred locals. The invaders were rescued by U.S. Cavalry from Fort McKinney on the third day of the siege.

Harris traded the ranch to J.P. Gammon for another property in 1904, and Gammon used the TA to raise Percheron

Percheron

The Percheron is a breed of draft horse that originated in the Perche valley in northern France. Percherons are usually gray or black in color. They are well-muscled, and known for their intelligence and willingness to work. Although their exact origins are unknown, the ancestors of the breed were...

 draft horses. In the 1920s Gammon started to raise Hereford cattle

Hereford (cattle)

Hereford cattle are a beef cattle breed, widely used both in intemperate areas and temperate areas, mainly for meat production.Originally from Herefordshire, England, United Kingdom, more than five million pedigree Hereford Cattle now exist in over 50 countries...

and expanded the ranch to raise hogs. The ranch changed hands to the Long Brothers in 1979, followed by several other changes of ownership.

The ranch is presently operated as a guest ranch and conference center.

External links

• TA Guest Ranch - official site
• Photographs of the TA Ranch at the National Park Service's NRHP database
• T A Ranch Historic District at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office