Tipping our Hats to Dude Ranching

Dude ranching in the mid-1800s was the first time westerners tried their hand at the hospitality industry and has served as a model ever since.

From fashion to hospitality, dude ranching served up western influence across the globe in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

We sling around the phrase “western hospitality” like a $10 fleece blanket. You can get western hospitality mints. President Taft had his “weight increased by Western Hospitality,” read an 1852 New York Times headline. There is something genuine—even natural—about hospitality in the West; albeit, quite different than the rules and etiquette that define, say, southern hospitality. Dude ranches offer a place to “round up” some examples and ponder a surviving culture.

The Waltz of Tourism
All dressed up in our traveling costumes, we hope to be viewed as an insider yet treated as a guest. This has been true since the time of the “dude.” To the Custer Trail Ranch in North Dakota, the Eaton brothers invited friends to join their buffalo hunts and delight in the ranching landscapes. As visitors increased, including the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, a friend suggested that the Eatons charge a fee. In 1882, dude ranching was born at $10 a head. Lawrence Borne, author of “Dude Ranching: A Complete History,” noted that taking money “was contrary to the code of ranching hospitality…” By the 1920s, the business boomed and ranchers said they herded dudes instead of cattle.

At first, ranchers provided exactly what they had: salted bear meat, wild lands, trusty steeds, and plenty of chores. The mattresses were stuffed but the folks weren’t stuffy. Whether they ran a cattle or sporting operation, ranchers were personally and inextricably linked to their offerings. It was an honest business. Westerners did what they loved, and guests supplemented their income. In northwest Wyoming, where over 20 operations still exist, the scenery and its seemingly endless supply of wild game spawned a market.

The Dude Ranch Association (DRA) formed in 1926 to create publicity and define codes of authenticity for this growing industry. After much debate over the possible derogatory nature of the word, the DRA settled on “dude.” The association insisted on long stays, thus the dude, the tenderfoot, and later, the city slicker, would find true cultural immersion.

Dude Ranching Sets Fashion
De rigueur, wealthy travelers—dudes in their duds—sallied forth as news of the laissez-faire West beckoned. Rough and ready, cowboys wore what fit their trade. At dude ranches, far from eastern prattle, “the American woman of fashion first saw Levis,” wrote Peter Tamony in the journal Western Folklore. A 1926 New York Times headline read: “Smart Outdoor Fashions; Costumes for Mountains Are Special Concern of American Designers.” Then in 1927: “President Coolidge is not the only Easterner making his debut this season in shaggy chaps and five-gallon hat, for ‘dude ranching’ is an important industry in the West.”

Railroad expansion and rangeland depletion for cattle drove the dude business. Because of World War I, European vacations became off-limits. Rail operators, along with the Department of Interior, endorsed a “See America First” campaign. Paradoxically, the railways fostered industrialization and wealth while showing easterners an escape from the objects and cities of their creation. Owen Wister suffered a nervous breakdown, and his retreat to and fascination with the West led to “The Virginian.” Published in 1902, it characterized the alternative lifestyle and the archetypal cowboy who sometimes showed disdain or aloofness toward unfit yet refined “outsiders.”

Hospitality Runs Deep
The DRA still markets western hospitality, but changing times mean plenty of spa and cowboy cuisine. Harold Turner, third generation dude rancher at the Triangle X in Jackson, Wyoming, describes a shift in resources. “Used to be you’d hire the old cowboys to be your wrangler because of the color of their language and their dress. Now when we hire it’s not what they know about horses, it’s their people skills. Friendliness is difficult to teach.”

Turner credits ranch women for much of the hospitality. “It came so naturally for my mother. Her kindness made people feel welcome,” says Turner. Emily Frew of the 4 Lazy F Ranch had such a knack for
entertaining that she could both fire and cool a debate, to keep the conversation going from table to hearth.

As America fulfilled its Manifest Destiny, ranches created an environment for East to meet West, to exchange ideas, even have costume parties and some romance. Great Northern’s Empire Builder puffed forward with aggressive marketing after WWII—passenger cars complete with “branding irons, pinto leather seats, and true cow-country hospitality.”

The Beginnings of Conservation
Dude ranching practices predated all national parks except Yellowstone. Ranchers throughout the Rockies had the foresight and the hope that land would always be a host. Struthers Burt imagined a “museum of the hoof” in Jackson, Wyoming. He had started the JY Ranch, which became the Rockefeller family retreat and then, in 2001, a gift to Grand Teton National Park. Grand Teton also absorbed most of the White Grass, another pioneering ranch.

Dr. Horace Carncross joined Burt’s next dude venture, the Bar BC, which has largely been conserved. Other notable Wyoming conservationists included Charlie Moore of the CM in Dubois, and Larry Larom of the
Valley Ranch near Cody. For long-term success, land stewardship came with the territory. What might be truly amazing is that dude ranching survived at all when set against the corporate consolidation of cattle ranching, the decline of mom-and-pop businesses, and the national park institution, which absorbed many properties. Yet the DRA has approximately 100 members, as it did in 1929 and 1943. Over half of them are till multi-generational family operations, and “managerial” families run most of the rest. Guest ranches come in all shapes, sizes, and geographies, but the DRA cautions prospective ranchers that duding takes a lot of land and a lot of love.

Ranchers—both dude and cattle—often lament for the good old days when neighbors traveled miles just to lend a hand. Ranchers still have their own set of ethics. According to Turner, “To this day there is something different about this kind of life. People who work the land have to depend on their own knowledge and innovations, thinking on the spot and solving problems with what’s at hand. I call it all common sense.”
The survival nature of this work kindles humanity and promotes camaraderie. While hotels and theme parks extend products and services, ranch folks actually open their homes. They aren’t just in the biz, they are the biz.