Northern Pacific Ranch Vacations

Burlington, Great Northern, and Union Pacific dude ranch booklets typically included a few pages describing dude ranch vacations followed by many pages of one- or two-paragraph descriptions of all the dude ranches near each railroad’s lines. Northern Pacific did it differently, as nearly all of this booklet focuses on what a dude ranch trip is like, with a one-page table giving the name, location, rates, and “kind of place” (fishing camp, horses, etc.) for more than 80 dude ranches.

Click image to download an 8.6-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet. Click here to download a 1.1-MB PDF of the front and back covers as shown above.

In lieu of the one-paragraph descriptions, Northern Pacific supplemented this 1947 booklet with two-page flyers for many of the dude ranches mentioned in the booklet. Four such flyers were included with this booklet, one each for ranches near Big Timber MT, Cody WY, Ennis MT, and Helena MT.

Click image to download a 5.0-MB PDF of four dude ranch flyers.

I’ve actually been to the Diamond J Ranch near Ennis, and it hasn’t changed much since 1948, when the flyers were printed (which means it still has a wonderful rustic lodge and cabins). The Blackwater Ranch also still exists, but the Lost Cabin and Old Kaintuck’s guest ranches are no longer operating.

Someone named William Schaffner signed all of these documents, showing that Northern Pacific distributed the Ranch Vacations booklet together with flyers for selected ranches. Why these particular four ranches were included with the booklet is a mystery as none of them are located particularly close to one another.


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