Dr. G. William Barry

In about 1903, Grosvener W. Barry chanced upon Trail Creek Valley and liked what he saw. After deciding to stay, he built a cabin and several other buildings from the dead timber on one side of the canyon. (As the story goes, years before, a prospector had set a fire to a bush to exterminate a rattlesnake, and the fire got out of hand.) Barry’s wife Edith and Claude St. John, her son by a previous marriage, joined him at the ranch.

 

 

Living on the Dryhead

Barry was a true promoter from New York. Over the years, his schemes to extract a fortune in gold from the Bighorn Canyon placer deposits led to the formation of three gold mining companies: Hidden Canyon Gold Mining, Big Horn Gold Dredging, and Gold Creek Consolidated Dredging Companies.  Stock was sold in the first two of these companies and enough money was raised by the second to purchase, ship, and assemble a huge dredge on the Bighorn River at the mouth of Trail Creek. The dredge never recovered enough gold to even pay for its operation. Barry then turned to dude ranching, using the natural opportunities of hiking, fishing, hunting, camping, sight seeing, and horseback riding to make his fortune. During WWI dude ranching business was slow, but was revived in the 1920’s. 

 

Grosvener W. Barry died of a brain tumor in Billings, MT on January 25, 1920. Mrs. Barry and Claude St. John continued to operate the dude ranch for several years after Barry’s death, eventually turning solely to cattle and horse ranching.