THE AMERICAN DREAM. REALIZED.

Our family put down roots on this remote and forbidding land -- hanging on through all the blizzards, droughts, floods, and fires Mother Nature threw at them. This land isn't for quitters. Or get-rich-quickers. Through the challenges and hardships, we developed our own brand of cheerful resilience - we buck up, carry on, and look for the rainbow after the storm.

We’re shepherds. We care for our flock and the land that sustains us. We care for our family, our friends, our community, and those less fortunate. For us, Wyoming will always be The Cowboy State … the big sky, rugged terrain, high desert, quiet and isolation. When you live in The High Lonesome, you learn to work hard, be patient, and take the long view.

Charles L. Harlan was born in Iowa in 1876. When he was a young boy his uncle’s family departed Iowa in a covered wagon headed for Wyoming -- and settled a few miles from our family ranch. As a teenager, Harlan traveled by train and horse to visit the family -- and fell in love with Wyoming and its people. He became the first economist reporting on livestock prices across the country -- which required him to live in Washington D.C. but allowed him to travel across the country every summer collecting market data at all the major livestock sale locations. At the end of every summer he took a few weeks vacation to visit the Wyoming family. When his son (James S. Harlan) was a young child he rode along -- traveling all summer in a Model T on dirt roads -- for the joy of spending time in Wyoming. He, too, fell in love with pastoral Wyoming. For many years, C.L. Harlan saved money so he could lease and eventually buy the family ranch.

James S. Harlan was born in 1921 and grew up in Arlington, Virginia. He came to Wyoming every chance he got and spent summers working on the ranch as a teenager. He had a life-long love for this land. He joined the Army during WWII and was taken prisoner in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1945. From his six grueling months in a German prison camp, he had a deep-seated fear of hunger and appreciation for the lowly turnip, which kept him alive. After the war, he returned to Iowa State University where he met Joanne Hayes from Chicago, known as Jo Harlan to most (and Granny to family). They graduated, got married and decided to pursue a life of adventure in Wyoming.

So, they packed their belongings in an old Jeep, and moved to the ranch. Their early days here were truly wild -- no electricity, running water, or phone. They hauled water from the Powder River for cooking, bathing, and washing dishes and clothes. They chopped wood to heat the cookstove and the house. Their first ranching enterprise -- starting a cow dairy to provide milk for a proposed town that was never built -- was a dismal failure. They had no money but they persevered, buoyed by big dreams and their love for the land. In the early 1950’s they acquired their first lambs by share-cropping with an old sheep herder who grazed “the long pasture” (public road right-of-way). Over time, they put in a water well, got electricity, and a phone. They worked hard, and raised four children, and housed many young men who lived in their upstairs and worked on the ranch. As they told their visitors, “We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to share what we have.” From jump street they knew that it doesn’t take money or fame to make a difference in peoples’ lives and the community. In recognition of their lifetime of service to the community and state “Harlan Ridge” was named for them on the USGS topographic map of our area (Red Fork Powder River WY 2017). A true love of each other and of the land drove them onward, and they built a ranch and a family. We share their pioneering spirit. It inspired us to take the bold risk of starting a sheep dairy and cheese making business to breathe new life into our family's historic ranch.

The ranch is a magical place, and we’ve been fortunate to share it with so many families, friends, and strangers over the years.