Ghost Ranches of Montana Miles City Area
Now Only a Target
Oil on Canvas 9″ x 12″ $500 Contact to Purchase Burgel Ranch Chris Burgel was a card player. When his luck was good he had money for cows, but when he lost he had to settle for sheep. No records were kept to show which animal was the more prevalent, but there are still a log house and a board building, both now lodges for mice and rats. Inside remain many discarded, family treasures, poignantly rotting and rusting away.
The Sunday Car
Oil on Canvas 12″ x 12″ $550 Contact to Purchase Gresens Ranch Thomas Grist homesteaded the ranch and built the log house still standing on the property. It was then bought by Neal Gresen’s parents, and when Neal married Irene, they lived in the corn crib until his folks sold the property to them. Here Marge Holmlund, our guide, played as a child, and the love of this property and her aunt was beautifully evident as we toured the ranch. The Gresens raised their four children in the tiny house they built in the twenties. To accommodate four little […]
Still Standing Proud
Oil on Canvas 24″ x 18″ $900 Contact to Purchase Schlott Ranch This ranch was homestead by Charles Schrader, and the Schlotts probably built the house which, despite the collapse of its two stories into one, still manages to stand. It is presently owned by our guide’s uncle, and next to it the remains of the wind generator give a proof of the climate. Oil on Canvas 24″ x 18″ $900 Contact to Purchase Schlott Ranch This ranch was homestead by Charles Schrader, and the Schlotts probably built the house which, despite the collapse of its two stories into one, […]
Randy and Popeye
2012 Oil on Old Barn Wood 15″ x 16.5″ unframed $1300 Contact to Purchase The Carey Ranch Randy Carey, born in the early forties, was about ten when he taught both himself and his ever-faithful Shetland pony this trick. Being the youngest of six children, he was a reasonably spoiled child, but then that sort of matched the temperament of his pony. Popeye was a gift from his parents, and he rode his pony everywhere on their ranch on Foster Creek in Custer County. Randy taught him this trick which both horse and rider loved to perform. After his father […]
Home Away from Home
Oil on Canvas 16″ x 20 ” $750 Contact to Purchase Leonard Homestead One section, which equals 640 acres, of each township (36 sections) was dedicated by the state to education. Yet, it was impossible in bad weather to gather all the children together in one building and return them home each evening. Across the field from the school, the ranchers in this area outside Miles City built a dug-out house, and the children lived there in bad weather, generally all winter. One parent stayed with them and cared for all.
Grandma’s Favorite Chair
Oil on Canvas 11″ x 14″ $600 Contact to Purchase Burgel Ranch Chris Burgel was a card player. When his luck was good he had money for cows, but when he lost he had to settle for sheep. No records were kept to show which animal was the more prevalent, but there are still a log house and a board building, both now lodges for mice and rats. Inside remain many discarded, family treasures, poignantly rotting and rusting away.
Early Spa
Oil on Canvas 20″ x 16″ $800 Contact to Purchase Hot Water Well Here in 1956 Shell Oil drilled 8,230 feet before all Hell broke loose. Instead of oil they hit a vein of hot, high pressure water, the same for which Yellowstone is famous. From April to June they tried to plug it off, for they were certain oil was beneath it. On June 7th drilling began again only to blow at 8,256 ft. On the third attempt, July 4th, the geyser blew like a patriotic rocket at 8,840 ft, at which point they put valves on top the […]
Their Dream House
Oil on Canvas 24″ x 18″ $1000 Contact to Purchase Martin Ranch Joel Charles Martin and Diana Marsh Martin, with their five children, left Milwaukee, Wisconsin by train to start a new life on their homestead forty miles northwest of Miles City. Joel had lost all the fingers on his left hand in a sawmill accident and felt farming was the way he could now support his family. They shipped everything they owned: a steam engine, machinery, lumber, household items, horses, and livestock. At first they survived in a tent, then a tar paper shack for the summer, until he […]
The Cowboy
2012 Oil on Old Barn Wood 24″ x 15.5″ unframed $1300 Contact to Purchase The Carey Ranch The eldest of six children, Del Carey, at the tender age of nineteen or twenty, was thrust into heading the ranch and family when his father died in a tragic horse accident. In a parade in Miles City, his horse reared up and threw him backwards. Del’s father struck his head on the curb and died five or six days later. When his mother remarried and moved to Seattle, Del stayed to run the family ranch on Foster Creek in Custer County and […]
Buffalo Blind
Oil on Canvas 20″ x 16″ $750 Contact to Purchase Buffalo Camp In the late 1870’s through the early 1880’s, from behind the man-made rock wall guarding a then wood covered cave, high on a hillside, sharpshooters used 45-120 Sharps rifles to decimate the buffalo population. By 1883 the powerful beasts, once ranging over all that would become the United States were gone. A good sharpshooter could kill about a hundred head a day and was paid 25 cents an ear. The animals were skinned where they fell, and the hides left to dry on the banks of the Yellowstone, […]
A Woman’s Life
Oil on Canvas 11″ x 14″ Sold Burgel Ranch Chris Burgel was a card player. When his luck was good he had money for cows, but when he lost he had to settle for sheep. No records were kept to show which animal was the more prevalent, but there are still a log house and a board building, both now lodges for mice and rats. Inside remain many discarded, family treasures, poignantly rotting and rusting away