Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn
Known as Betty Dick’s or the Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn, it stands alone as a statement of the past
The first time I saw the barn, I had a feeling that both exuded and inspired a sense of history. It stood isolated in a field, reminiscent of a time past as mountains rose up in the background. It is on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park in Kawuneeche Valley. Known as Betty Dick’s Barn or the Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn, it stands alone as a statement of the past.
Homesteaded in 1914 by Nelson C. House, the ranch barn was built in 1942. Today it is part of RMNP and one of my favorite areas to meander about with hopes of spotting wildlife.
It started five years ago as I began guiding RMNPhotographer Tours. We’d take guests to see the barn. It was a two block walk down an ancient farm road into the Kawuneeche Valley meadow. For many guests, wearing unfamiliar hiking boots and their eyes open watching for dark, moving spots called moose, the walk to the barn was a great wilderness adventure.
Standing in the foreground of the Never Summer Mountain Range, RMNPhotographer guests love seeing the old homestead. This includes the first cabin, eventually used as a bunkhouse, and the house that still stands on the bank of the Colorado River. For guests unfamiliar with such wilderness, their trek around the original homestead is an adventure back in time.
The barn is the highlight representing a rare type of structure found almost exclusively in southern Louisiana while the barn’s construction is of natural materials from the RMNP area. While RMNP once had many lodges, inns, ranch houses and homesteads, the National Park Service has worked over many years to restore the landscape to its natural setting, The Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn is one of the few remaining historic structures in the park.
I remember on one of my first tours, my guests thought I was an amazing guide. I explained I was going to do some quick scouting. Walking over the bridge and down the trail of a road toward the barn, moments later I returned. Excited, I guided them a hundred yards to point out a good sized bull moose in the meadow. They were thrilled, and I was a super guide.
Then there was the early June day when one of our tour guests had a bad knee. We parked along the Colorado River as she sent this super guide and his guest off in search of wildlife. We walked and maneuvered, searched and hoped to see something, but it was not our day. When we returned to the vehicle, the hobbled guest asked what we saw. “Nothing,” replied the not so super guide.
That’s when she opened her phone saying, “While I was sitting here waiting, this happened.” There on her phone was the beautiful, full frame image of a moose calf standing belly deep in the Colorado River, her mother watched over her from the riverside. The guest shrugged, smiling, “They just walked out of the woods into the river, right here while I was sitting in the car.” Such is the life of a sometimes super guide.
For me, I like walking the land, over the bridge to the barn, and around the trail to the old homestead. The buildings, for the most part, survived the 2020 East Troublesome Fire that skirted all around it. Among the charred trees, I see the house on the bank of the Colorado River, and I envision the history, the families, children, and ranchers that embraced this land in a tougher time.
There were multiple landowners between 1914 and when RMNP fully took over the property in 2006. The most interesting part of its history may be in the last few years. In the 1980’s much of the land was sold to the NPS, and the final owners, Fred (who died in 1992) and Betty Dick, leased the land until 2005. It was at that point that the lease ended, and the NPS worked to have Betty leave the property.
After much legal maneuvering by the 83 year old Betty Dick, in 2006 Congress passed the “Betty Dick Residence Protection Act” which was then signed by President George W. Bush. The legislation gave Betty "life estate" rights to use part of the land and the cabin for the rest of her life. Sadly, Betty Dick died months after the proclamation was signed.
As a historical statement, the house, outbuildings, and Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn stand empty in the middle of the RMNP wilderness. Such was the day on June 6, 2022, when I photographed a bull moose and three cows crossing the Colorado River. Anticipating their path, I circled around capturing them trotting across the old homestead with the Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn as the photograph’s backdrop. It was an image of then and now.
Today, the barn stands as a memorial to a time past. It reminds us of the hard era and hardy people who came before us to this mountain meadow. They were the people before we cherished it as a national park. The Little Buckaroo Ranch Barn is a beautiful, wooden-warn memory of what was and a nice place for a meandering walk through the meadow today.
