Mason-Lovell Ranch Site

The Mason-Lovell Ranch, also known as the M-L Ranch, is probably unknown to anyone reading this blog. Located on the west side of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming along the Bighorn River, just before it empties into Bighorn Reservoir, is a historic site that was once the headquarters for a vast cattle ranch in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming. The M-L Ranch was a partnership between Anthony Mason, from Kansas City, MO, who provided the financing, and Henry Clay Lovell, who learned the cattle business in northern Texas, the Indian Territory, and Kansas, who provided the know-how.

In the beginning, Lovell trailed in two Kansas cattle herds and established the M-L Ranch along the Bighorn River in 1880. The M-L became a prominent cattle ranch in the Bighorn Basin during the heyday of the open range cattle industry in the 1880s. The M-L had as many as 25,000 head of cattle roaming freely from Thermopolis on the south to the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana to the north and westward across much of the Bighorn Basin. Known for being innovative, Lovell purchased high-grade Hereford bulls to improve the quality of the beef. In 1883, M-L cattle were the first to be driven north to Billings to the newly completed Northern Pacific Railroad to take them to markets elsewhere.

The M-L, like all other large cattle operations, suffered terribly during the historic winter of 1886-87. Blizzards, bitter cold, and heavy snow took their toll. Over 10,000 M-L cattle died that winter. Other ranches suffered even more. Mason died in 1897, but Lovell continued and restocked the range with several thousand cattle from Oregon.

The open range cattle industry in the West began to change when homesteaders and sheepmen came into the picture and the open range began to be sectioned off and fenced. The era of open range and huge cattle operations eventually faded away becoming part of the history of the West.

After driving down the west side of the Bighorn Mountains on U.S. Highway 14A, a side road takes you a short distance to the M-L Ranch headquarters site.  You are greeted with a few empty, weathered, log buildings beneath ancient cottonwood trees. The log bunkhouse is the most prominent existing structure. Constructed in the dogtrot style in three sections connected by breezeways, one end was the bunkhouse, the center section was a two room cook shack and mess hall, and the other end was sometimes used as an office, extra sleeping quarters, or storage. The frame constructed home of Henry Lovell burned in 1930. Other remaining structures include the blacksmith shop and two cabins.  Long gone structures include barns, an ice house, a windmill, and corrals.

Exiting the car you are greeted by near silence. The only sounds are the buzzing of grasshoppers and the rustling of cottonwood leaves in the breeze. How different from the hum of activity once a daily part of life when this ranch was alive and thriving. Gone are the voices, the snorting and whinnying of horses, the clanging of a blacksmith’s hammer, the metallic squeak of the turning windmill, the sound of roosters crowing, a dinner bell summoning the hired hands to a filling meal, children’s voices as they chased each other around the buildings, dogs barking, and the distant sound of cattle calling to each other. Much time has passed and it’s quiet now, but the legacy of open range cattle ranching lives on in the weathered and forlorn structures of the M-L Ranch headquarters.  If you try hard enough you just might be able to hear the faded voices whispering to you in the wind and bring this place back to life in your imagination.

Now, the site is preserved as part of Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. It’s not a place you would plan your vacation around but it’s a nice stop that provides a visual reminder of a bygone time when cattle empires ruled the West. At one time, I was the South District Interpreter at Bighorn Canyon NRA and I had the privilege of designing and writing the first informational brochure for the M-L Ranch historic site. It feels good to be telling its story again, years later. This blog post is my way of saying, “I haven’t forgotten you”.