The Dude Ranch Originals

The idea of a refreshing, friendly, unfettered frontier had been around since the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, but, in Hollywood movies of the 1930s, the image was refined and glorified into a fantasy few could resist. Inspired by dashing cowboy stars like Tom Mix, Bill Boyd, and Tim McCoy, Arizona dude ranchers deftly captured the Great American Western Dream and tastefully served it up to their guests on a silver platter.

The ingredients of dude ranch appeal were many, including wholesome food, a return to nature, dramatic scenery, glorious winter weather, exercise, relaxation, camaraderie, and even a touch of snobbery. However, the frosting on the cake was romance and adventure - and guest ranches supplied them in abundance.

Sheila Moore of Philadelphia, who spent her winters at an assortment of Arizona dude ranches during their heyday, recalls the Western theatrics staged by some spreads: "One Phoenix ranch sent their wranglers out to meet our train on horseback. They galloped along the tracks shouting Yipee! and Yahoo! and fired their guns as a token of welcome. Another place I think it was the Rancho Nezhone in Tucson-transported us from the depot in a covered wagon, complete with authentic jerks and jolts."

No matter how remote their ultimate destinations, most dude ranch visitors first stopped in one of the larger towns, where numerous fancy Western shops could fill their sartorial needs. Giggling society matrons tried on Stetson hats and checkered shirts while their executive husbands purchased expensive, silver-trimmed bat-winged chaps made popular by Hollywood costumers. It was all part of the fun. Some ranches even provided their guests with adultsized cap pistols for their holsters.

By the mid-1930s, this sort of goodnatured hokum had become a common part of the dude ranch scene, although some spreads steadfastly retained their primary function as self-supporting cattle outfits and even expected their guests to pitch in down at the corral.

All of the early dude ranches began as working cattle outfits like the Triangle H.C. When beef prices fluctuated downwards, various enterprising ranchers avoided bankruptcy by taking in bunkhouse boarders and guiding an occasional pack or hunting trip. Accommodations were rustic at best and miserable at worst bathrooms were communal, and the three staple B's (beans, bacon, and biscuits) constituted the monotonous menu. Horseback riding and cowpunching comprised the sole amusements. The Custer Trail Ranch in the Dakota badlands became the first outfit to coin the term "dude ranch" back in 1879. And one of its earliest dudes was a four-eyed tenderfoot from the East named Teddy Roosevelt. The future President's enthusiastic recommendations of the invigorating Western life gave the fledgling guest ranch industry a bountiful boost, while Roosevelt himself became the national embodiment of the Great American Western Dream. Shortly after Rough Ridin' Teddy left the White House in 1910, Arizona ranchers began to open their doors to dudes. More than ten legitimate guest ranches were operating during the early 'teens and 'twenties, with capacities which varied from between 10 and 25 patrons at a time. During the 1930s, hundreds of others jumped into the dude arena, and some ritzy ones could accommodate as many as 55 guests. The quaint former mining town of Wickenburg began calling itself the "Dude Ranch Capital of the World" with more than 30 ranches functioning in its vicinity. A month or even an entire winter at a guest ranch was becoming the "in" holiday of the Jazz Age, and as the fad continued to rage, competition between outfits got rootin' tootin'. Each establishment advertised its own unique blandishments - a sunny desert or cool mountain setting, a well-stocked bass lake, a game-filled forest, a stream-fed swimming pool, a therapeutic hot spring, a golf course, a rifle range, professional tennis courts, a music room, a Western library, a gourmet French menu, a school for the kiddies, a secretary for daddy, even a private landing strip. To rope in the romantic, brochures also usually related the story of an exciting massacre, holdup, shoot-out or manhunt which had occurred on or near the ranch. Trail rides and automobile excursions often led to Indian ruins, ghost towns, outlaw caves, or old Spanish mines. Some outfits employed a grizzly old-timer to spin fireside yarns about the ranch's heroic past, while others immortalized their extravagant legends in cowboy-type songs. And some gave a solid dash of the heroic. "To this great rancho you must come," said a 1936 brochure, "if you would know the life and environment of The Virginian, of Hopalong Cassidy, Whispering Smith, and those other heros of lariat and saddle."

It was all a far cry from the simple Western pleasures extolled by that earlier famous horseback hero, Teddy Roosevelt. Steam-heated cottages with private baths had comfortably replaced the chilly bunkhouses he once knew, and spacious dining rooms hung with bright Navajo blankets had pleasantly supplanted the ranch wife's drab little kitchen. Dude outfits generally operated on the American Plan, with one weekly fee covering room, board, and the exclusive use of a saddle horse. During the '30s and early '40s, rates at the more luxurious spreads ran between $25 and $50 a person per week. Next to riding, eating was the major activity at Arizona guest ranches, where, according to one 1938 magazine ad, "your last leisurely cup of breakfast coffee will lead you up to the kind of elegant luncheon you would expect to enjoy at your private club or on a luxury ocean liner." Ranch-raised meats, dairy products, citrus fruits, and vegetables dominated the menus, and even during Prohibition imported wines and beers were not unknown in the "bottle clubs" near the dining rooms. Although only one entree was offered at each meal, guests were encouraged to ask the cook to prepare their favorite dishes.

Wranglers are personable people with all the necessary cowboy talents plus the ability to help guests find some true meanings in the great outdoors.

Pit barbeques and sumptuous ethnic feasts highlighted such special ranch events as polo tournaments, rodeos, Indian powwows, and Mexican fiestas. The ranch staff called themselves "savages." They went out of their way to accommodate the whims of their guests and in their off-hours giggled about their adventures. Baldy Emerson of Flagstaff, who used to wrangle dudes on the swank Beaver Creek Ranch in central Arizona, remembers those evening gossip sessions with a chuckle: "My favorite yarn had ta do with a Congressman's pigheaded daughter. She kept insistin' that I give 'er a more spirited horse, even though she'd only put in a few hours in the saddle. Wal, I didn't want no injuries on the Beaver Creek spread, so I put on my thinkin' sombrero and thought me up a plan. "That night I snuck down ta the stable and started workin' on gentle ole Hadrian, the gelding she'd been ridin' fer two days. I covered his white blaze with bootblack and trimmed his mane and tail. In the mornin' I tole that stubborn young lady that he was Midnight Fury, a wild new horse we'd added to the remuda jest fer her. Did she think she could handle 'im? You bet! In no time she was canterin' off onpoor ole Hadrian jest as happy as a kitten in a creamery, 'n all afternoon she strutted about tellin' everyone how she'd tamed the most ferocious beast in the West." Such was the Arizona dude ranch a horsey, friendly, atmospheric place where everyone strove to please, even if it meant employing a harmless ruse or two. It was when the ruse became pervasive that the industry's fortunes began to decline. During the 1950s, metropolitan values began to seriously compete with the traditional cowboy culture, and no amount of fireside lore could mask the fact that the West was no longer wild. In Tucson and Phoenix, busy intersections were converging at the edges of the once-rural guest ranches, and land developers were eying those palm-covered acres with interest.

And so the fad burned itself out. During the '50s and '60s, hundreds of dude ranches headed for the last roundup, leaving only a select few hardy survivors to preserve the hospitable tradition.

But today the calf-length skirt is back along with cheek-to-cheek dancing and roller skates. And if those treasures of the '30s can be uncovered, why not the dude ranch vacation? As one brochure so floridly put it back in 1939: "America may seek out the ancient relics of Egypt, she may explore the mighty rivers of Brazil, she may scale the towering peaks of Nepal. In the end, however, she will wend her way back to Arizona and blissfully pursue her unquenchable love affair with the marvels of her own Great West."

Sprucedale

Getting up at dawn to milk the cows and ride the range through tranquil high country greenery make the dude ranch experience memorable for adults and children alike.

Sprucedale Ranch, for example, is a cluster of log cabins set in 160 acres of lush high country meadows, streams, and pine forest. Nothing fancy-unless you count the scenery-but certainly comfortable. Fay Wiltbank will tell you, "I've only had one complaint in 40 years . . . and that was from a lady who disputed the word 'modern' used in the state tourism brochure to describe our cabin conveniences. She didn't think four hours of electricity a day and our plumbing facilities could hardly be called 'modern.' Believe me, when we put electricity and plumbing in the cabins in the Forties, we sure thought they were modern!"

The settings are almost storybook stunning. At Elkhorn, the dirt track winds through lush desert toward the deep purple line of the sacred Baboquivari Mountains to the north, the sparkling white domes of the giant telescopes on Kitt Peak. At the gate of the lower corral, time stops. Brahma bulls make way grudgingly for a car to passunlike the calves, which bolt for the underbrush. The ranch is nestled among towering native trees . . . and everywhere the scene seems straight out of a Charles Russell painting. Living ocotillo forms the walls of the corrals. tack rooms bulge with harness, ropes, curry combs, wear-softened and stained leather chaps

on hooks beside the perennial yellow rain slickers. For background music there's the creak-hum song of the windmill and whinnies and snorts and tails whap-whapping.

(Three generations of the Miller family have run Elkhorn since Ernest Miller discovered it in the Forties, on a hunting trip to Mexico, and made it the winter version of his Montana ranch.) At Circle Z, south of Patagonia, near the Mexican border, the desert setting is equally luxuriant but somehow different. It just seems older, a perfect setting for the frontier sagas of rancher pitted against raiding Apache. Perhaps because it was.

The ranch has a long history of occupation. There are Indian ruins scattered through the dense desert foliage - and on "Circle Z Mountain," is an Indian cave once filled with potsherds, and now with wild creatures seeking shelter. Spanish relics have been found; and the old adobe wall that forms a section of the corral is believed to be part of the ruins of the John Ward ranch.

Ward has a page in history as the man who touched off the infamous Bascom Affair during the Apache wars. He accused Cochise of kidnapping his foster son. Cochise denied any knowledge of the boy. Of course, Cavalry officer Lt. George Bascom, charged with helping Ward retrieve his son, refused to believe the fabled chieftain was telling the truth even when he was advised otherwise by those who knew Cochise. He took his own hostages and in the end, executed them, touching off a bloody round of retaliatory battles.

K-L Bar

Dudes come in all ages to experience the laid-back western life. This includes making lifelong friends in comfortable surroundings as well as getting close to nature in the wide open spaces.

Circle Z had only cows as guests until 1928, when it was purchased by Lee and Carl Zinsmeister. They trans-formed it into a winter resort, which it has remained through the years.

formed it into a winter resort, which it has remained through the years.

In Wickenburg's Western Museum, The Dude Ranch Capital pays tribute to a piece of history-the venerable old Kay El Bar Ranch (which also has gained inclusion in the National Regis-ter of Historic Places) in a colorful scale diorama of the adobe lodge built in the early 1900's. But the full-size model out Highway 89-93-60 on Rin-con Road is anything but a museum piece.

con Road is anything but a museum piece.

Kay El Bar at first appears as though drowsing in the sunshine, warming its aging bones but it's only a fleeting impression. The old rancho reverberates with the sounds of people at play throughout the winter season. A leather wall hanging, in the cool dimness of the lodge, announces: "Guest you are welcome here. Do as you please. Go to bed when you want-get up at your ease. You're welcome to share with us whatever we've got the leak in the roof or the beans in the pot. You don't have to like us. Or laugh at our jokes. Say what you like. You're one of the folks!"

It obviously sets the tone for the kind of getaway Kay El Bar offers for that matter, all of the guest ranches. As though reading my mind, the owners, Jane Nash and her sister, Jan Martin, echoed the sentiment as they led me back out, into a day bright with sunshine and the scent of roses, to sit under the patio umbrella. Beautiful old trees, fed by the river's nearness, shifted their patterns of shade with the slight breeze, and Gambel's quail bobbed their comic dance across the open pasture.

"It's a warm, comfortable, kick-your-shoes-off kind of place. If someone came to dinner in a tie, we'd faint! No one is here to impress anyone lawyers, doctors, airline pilots, businessmen all fit like an old shoe. They have to get along, it's such a small place ." Jane chuckled with pleasure.

"This was originally a working cattle ranch 60 or 70 years ago, started by Kenneth Lowdermilk," Jane mused, as her eyes swept the brush-covered hills flanking the ranch, "in fact, all the adobe was 'foot-made' here in the yard from earth taken from the surrounding hills. Later on, we'd like to raise some cattle again. However, the river took away a whole pasture when it flooded, so we'll have to do some work to get it back-we have about 60 acres, including what's now in the riverbed." Wrangler Dave Lookingbill, sprawled in a lawn chair scratching the furry pate of the dog at his feet, laughed. "Believe me, if we had cattle, they'd end up being the oldest in history... these two would never be able to eat them. They're like Pied Pipers to stray animals and children!"

The two sisters flashed an ear-boxing grin, but admitted it was true. "We feel it's important to encourage people to bring their children. You know... lots of youngsters in the city don't even get to be around dogs, much less horses! They love it!"

Horses constitute the major form of entertainment at this group of guest ranches. All five outfits are "riding ranches," offering basically the view from the back of a horse which is nothing to sneeze at when you consider the hundreds of varied, unique, and lonesome acres of Arizona landscape there for the exploring. In some in-stances, guests become temporary ranch hands, as in the old days, to help with gathering cows, branding, vaccinating, milking, and bottle-feeding calves. The most sought-after reservations at Elkhorn revolve around spring roundup and at Sprucedale, children who normally would have to be threatened out of bed, are typically up and waiting for milking time at 6:30 a.m.

The rides themselves are events, whether it's a breakfast ride, a picnic ride, a campfire cookout ride, a moonlight ride, chuck wagon ride or just a ride ride. It gives people an opportunity to gain a different perspective of the wilderness even if it's just a sen-sation of distance, something we've grown away from with the advent of cars and jet airplanes. It also provides a chance to enjoy a slower, quieter view of nature to observe wild creatures at home or note the opening of a bright strawberry hedgehog bloom. The true immensity of the wilderness on a daylong ride into remote areas is fully appreciated if only by counting the saddle sores.

And, very often, guests also have an opportunity to test their riding skills in competitions such as Flying E offers in its "Dudeo-Gymkhanas." Flying E guests and dudes from other ranches compete for prizes in a variety of games on horseback then they get to sit back and watch the wranglers do their stuff ridin' and ropin'.

Still, it's the people that keep guests coming back year after year some for six, eight, even twenty seasons, looking for that feeling of family, the old-fashioned, back-to-the-land close-ness that's undeniable and without price.

Vi Wellik calls the heart of the Flying E "the homestead"-and, indeed, the core of the 21,000-acre, fly-in ranch looks like a portrait of rural America with its high, weathervaned red barn. And she doesn't say the homestead lightly. The Welliks know their friends will always come "home."

"Let me show you something," Vi's smile held a hint of mischief as she led the way to the barn past the Slave Quarters (a small joke in white paint on the ranch hands' bunkhouses). At her side, a golden retriever kept stride on three legs ("he'd been abandoned, and the vet telephoned to say the ranch needed a good dog . . . he was right"). From the tack room, Vi brought out a branding iron with the Flying E insignia on it. "When guests arrive, we have a formal ceremony in the corral and brand the seat of their pants (with the same paint used for highway striping) . . . then they have to come back!"

Linda Miller, granddaughter of Elk-horn's founder, said it too, as she fondly surveyed the group of septuagenarians and octogenarians (among them, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Robert Penn Warren) sitting under the shade of a sprawling tree, having lunch. It's great! I love it... it's just like having friends come!"

The families and their wranglers are very close knit, too, which rubs off on the guests. The three young Mexican vaqueros at Circle Z 24-year-old George Lorta, 22-year-old Marco Gallardo, and 17-year-old Armando Murrietta-call Don and Doris Simmons, who manage the ranch, "mama" and "papa." As George says, "We live here all year long and they are the closest thing we have to family." Lloyd Wortman, a gentle-voiced man with twinkling blue eyes, worked for Ernest Miller as a boy, and later ran his own spread for 30 years. Semi-retired now, he wrangles at Elkhorn again, during the season. "It was like coming home, it's so close a family."

The annual "families" range in age from tots in their first pair of long pants, who have to ride double with dad, to active, avid horsemen and nature buffs in their nineties. And they all seem to mix as though there were no age difference at all. Of course, at certain times of the year such as spring break when youngsters are out of school the tide of ages may swing dramatically to one side or another. Only Sprucedale Ranch, though, because of its summer season, seems to consistently draw families with children of all sizes.

Guests arrive from every part of the country, though the heaviest representations seem to be from the opposite ends of the country-the East and West coasts. And more and more Europeans are discovering the charm of the isolated havens of The Old West though how, is anyone's guess, since none of the guest ranches advertise.

Says Vi Wellik at Flying E, "We're seeing more German families than ever before, coming to visit. They just can't get over the wide open spaces and the wildlife. (With feeders, she draws a variety of desert birds and other creatures.) They love it!"

Lots of inquiries arrive from France, England, Belgium, Germany even Japan. And those who follow the inquiry in person often put a memorable stamp on their visit.

"Last year," laughed Dave Looking-bill, "a small group of Japanese businessmen showed up for an overnight stay at Kay El Bar. You've never seen anything until you've seen a whole group of men riding the range in three-piece business suits. They didn't speak a word of English they just kept smiling. Even one man who did a half gainer off the horse... he got up, still smiling, shook himself, and got back on!"

Circle Z was invaded by the French Doris Simmons, a pert, vivacious woman, chuckled at the memory. "Two well-to-do French businessmen were recommended to the ranch, as a place to find The Old West.

But before they arrived they made a little detour across the border into Mex-ico and bought leather chaps. They had already outfitted themselves with jeans, Western shirts, boots, hats, the whole thing. When they got here, they handed George, one of our vaqueros, a movie camera. He turned to me in con-sternation. 'but Mama, don't know how to use this... I patted him and advised just pointing it and pushing the button.

"For a week, those people cut a wide, and wild swath across the 5000 acres of the ranch and surrounding national forest and state park land-ridin' and shootin' at the target range and rowdy-ing in town at the old Wagon Wheel Saloon. Lord only knows what tales they told their families when they got home. It was wonderful fun!"

Of course, others come to guest ranches for a slightly quieter time. There are those who come to soak up the sunshine, to hike, to photograph the wonderful varieties of flowers when they bloom in spring, to feed the birds and small desert creatures that come into close proximity of the ranch build-ings, to just relax. (And, there are lots of festive occasions celebrated, and such old-time pleasures as the foot-stomping square dances in the hayloft at Flying E.)

Circle Z

Just 15 miles from the border means friendly vaqueros and a colorful Mexican influence in architecture. Set in one of the five best birding areas of the U.S., guests come to appreciate bird-watching as well as traditional comforts of dude ranch life.

Birders travel from all over the world to the Circle Z because it is home and habitat to some of the rarest species in the U.S. At the time of my visit, two young nature tour guides (Rose-ann Rowlett and Brett Whitney) had brought a group from Texas to bird. The specialty that drew them to Circle Z, they said, was the rose-throated be-card, though they had been treated to the sight of many other sought-after birds, such as the thick-billed kingbird. They unfortunately had little luck in spotting the five-striped sparrow, a very rare bird indeed. Disappointment obvious in her voice, Roseann sighed, "I'm not sure it's coming back this year. And this is really the only accessible place to see it-it only turned up for the first time ten years ago. Normally, it's found in Mexico."

But no matter what draws the adults to the comfortable pleasures of the guest ranch, to youngsters all that matters are their heroes the wranglers. Every wrangler is John "The Duke" Wayne... tall and brave and wonder-ful. Especially to the tender hearts of little girls. When Jane Nash and Jan Martin of Kay El Bar were little girls spending summers on dude ranches in upstate New York, they were "madly in love with the wrangler. We'd shovel out the corral, feed the horses do anything!... for the privilege of taking an extra ride on the horses."

They have never forgotten the enchantment. And neither will another little girl who ended her stay at Spruce-dale Ranch by flinging herself into her father's arms, wailing a dirge of unbearable loss. "Daddy... Daddy," she sob-bed, "please can't we stay! I don't want to leave Russell ever!!!"

Editor's note Additional information about Arizona's many guest ranches is available from these sources: Arizona Office of Tourism, 112 N. Central, Phoenix 85004 (602-255-3618); Tucson Convention and Visitors' Bureau, LaPlacita-Magdalena Building, 120 W. Broadway, Tucson 85726 (602-791-4768).