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Tales of the Ranch

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  • North Dakota Today,  The Cowboy Chronicle

    Sentinel on the Prairie: Celebrating Twenty-five Years of the Preservation and Protection of North Dakota History

    May 28, 2020 /

    He had been thinking about this for a while now.  So many stories and moments, friendships and connections were passing through time. They drifted like the wind across the prairies, and he hated the thought they could all be lost. Countless hours were spent visiting with folks and embracing all the memories and history he could. The stories they told may not have been notable markers in history, but they embodied the character and the essence of the generations.  These moments in time woven together were the fabric of America’s western history and an important part of a great national epic. Those who built North Dakota, who dreamed, sacrificed and…

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    The Wild Horses of Roosevelt’s Badlands

    February 24, 2018

    The Wild Horses of Roosevelt’s Badlands for The Cowboy Chronicle

    November 10, 2017

    Knowing Your Past Carries You into the Future

    July 8, 2018
  • Tales of the Ranch

    Rex

    April 21, 2020 /

    Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride, friendship without envy or beauty without vanity? Here, where grace is laced with muscle and strength by gentleness confined. He serves without servility; he has fought without enmity. There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent, there is nothing so quick, nothing more patient. England’s past has been borne on his back. All history is his industry; we are his heirs, he our inheritance. The Horse, poem by Ronald Duncan Rex was indeed noble; in stature and disposition, but he was not haughty or conceited. He knew without fail what to do, how to do it, was willing and…

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    The Goose and Laddie

    February 10, 2016

    A Century Since the Great War; Family Ties

    November 12, 2018

    Long Ago and Far Away; Memories of a Log Cabin

    March 25, 2015
  • The Cowboy Chronicle,  Western History

    Branding Across Time

    November 4, 2019 /

    When thinking of the American West the image of a laconic individual with the requisite boots, chaps, and hat comes to mind. We envision him on long cattle drives, riding along miles and miles of fences or on a great roundup. In our minds we can see the cowboy chasing down a hapless calf, roping and wrestling it to the ground by a campfire with branding irons in the flames. Another cowboy grabs it and burns the owners mark on its hip. It’s all part of the mystique of the cowboy, some of it romanticized in art and the movies; all of it based on reality and much of it…

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    “Come and Get It”

    May 30, 2018

    The Railroad and Settlement in Early North Dakota

    April 9, 2015

    History of the Western Saddle

    January 27, 2015
  • Biographies,  North Dakota Horizons magazine

    A Wandering Man: Louis L’Amour

    September 28, 2019 /

    It was a love affair that ran the course of a lifetime. Whether it was consuming, creating, or collecting, the written word permeated every aspect of his life. He spent hours in the library. As a young man traveling and working all over the world, he would find time to read multiple books per week, boasting that between 1928 and 1942 he read more than 150 books a year. It was said, as a reader, his only match may have been Theodore Roosevelt who would often read up to three books a day. He attained a personal library of well over 10,000 books, journals, periodicals and maps, a vast and…

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    Charles Franklin Martell: Pre-1940’s Ranching Division nominee 2019

    February 13, 2019

    Harold Schafer, Mr. Bubble and the Legacy of Medora

    April 9, 2015

    Biography of George W. Nohle

    March 1, 2015
  • History,  Native Americans,  The Cowboy Chronicle

    Necessities for a Nomadic Life

    August 18, 2019 /

    It was time to move. The young woman took down their tepee and secured the poles to the horses, building the travois’ that would carry the rest of their home and other worldly possessions.

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    The Railroad and Settlement in Early North Dakota

    April 9, 2015

    The Battle at Guilford Courthouse

    May 1, 2019

    Just One More Ride

    December 9, 2018
  • Biographies,  North Dakota History,  Western History

    The Wandering Man

    June 4, 2019 /

    This love affair lasted a lifetime; whether consuming, creating, or collecting, the written word permeated his life. He bragged that between 1928 and 1942 he read more than 150 books a year. He built a personal library of over 10,000 books, journals, and periodicals; a varied collection that surprised and delighted visitors. He was one of the world’s most prolific authors writing poetry, over 400 short stories, screenplays and more than 100 books. Sitting in his sick bed, Louis L’Amour was editing his final book the day he died in 1988. Some discounted his writing as just simple westerns, but his stories perfectly expressed the romance and authenticities of Western…

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    Harold Schafer, Mr. Bubble and the Legacy of Medora

    April 9, 2015

    Biography of Andrew J. Nohle

    February 28, 2015

    The Cowboy Doctor

    December 22, 2020
  • History,  Tales of the Ranch

    The Battle at Guilford Courthouse

    May 1, 2019 /

    On a recent trip to North Carolina I visited the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park with my sister and niece. There is a great deal I don’t know about this time in our nation’s history! So much of our revolutionary war education centers on the north, yet the battles in the south were of tremendous importance. Somewhere in the fight for Independence two centuries ago are two ancestors of mine, Moses Hill and John Gould who was an ancestor of my Grandmother Martell (Lila Vanderhoof). There is also a Morgan on Don’s side who may very well have been in one of these battles since the Morgan’s at that time…

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    Straight to the Horse’s Mouth

    April 30, 2019

    The Railroad and Settlement in Early North Dakota

    April 9, 2015

    Just One More Ride

    December 9, 2018
  • History,  The Cowboy Chronicle,  Western History

    Straight to the Horse’s Mouth

    April 30, 2019 /

    At first glance, especially to those unfamiliar with all that is involved in horse care, the new exhibit at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame might look like medieval tools of torture.  No need to worry, these old malicious looking implements are just a set of equine dentistry tools from 1904, donated to the hall by the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation. It is believed that equine dentistry practices began about 2000 years ago on the steppes of northeastern Asia and Mongolia by ancient nomads. The horse has the distinction of being the most significant domesticated animal of the past 5000 years, playing a critical role in the development, growth…

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    Mary Patricia Martell Jones 0 Comments

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    The Railroad and Settlement in Early North Dakota

    April 9, 2015

    Just One More Ride

    December 9, 2018

    A Century Since the Great War; Family Ties

    November 12, 2018
  • Biographies,  The Cowboy Chronicle

    Charles Franklin Martell: Pre-1940’s Ranching Division nominee 2019

    February 13, 2019 /

    In 1908 a young man left his family dairy farm in New York going west to fulfill his dream in western North Dakota. Charles Martell arrived with nothing, worked for his uncles and was on his own by 1914. He established a ranch headquarters known as “Horse Camp”, running several hundred head of horses and cattle. Martell learned to identify and purchase strong breeding stock and expertly break horses. The 1920’s saw local horse markets declining, but Martell found new profitable markets for local horses in New York.  As farming practices became more mechanized the horse market again declined, so he shifted his focus to cattle. Martell’s ranch grew to…

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    Biography of Charles Franklin Martell

    February 28, 2015

    A Wandering Man: Louis L’Amour

    September 28, 2019

    The Wandering Man

    June 4, 2019
  • North Dakota History,  The Cowboy Chronicle,  Western History

    In Good Company

    February 13, 2019 /

    The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame shares its mission, and more than a few of its honorees, with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Chester Reynolds had a dream. He was a Kansas City native who rose from sales manager to president of Lee Jeans. He had a creative mind and came up with the idea of Buddy Lee, a doll who “modeled” miniature samples of his company’s clothing line.  But Chester’s greatest dream was to find a way to enshrine the cowboy and his era.  He worried our great western heritage was being lost in the modern world. The idea for a national museum first came to…

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    The Wandering Man

    June 4, 2019

    Biography of Charles Franklin Martell

    February 28, 2015

    Biography of George W. Nohle

    March 1, 2015
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