Mason-Lovell Ranch

 Headquarters of the Mason-Lovell Ranch

In 1883, after having used two other locations in the southern part of the Bighorn Basin, Henry Clay Lovell chose Willow Creek, in the Five Springs area, for the Mason/Lovell Ranch Headquarters. He built a bunkhouse, barn and corral and moved the home ranch was moved from Nowood Creek to this site in 1884. Henry Clay Lovell and Anthony L. Mason, owners of the ML Ranch had one of the largest and most prominent ranches in the eastern Bighorn Basin and the Wyoming Territory. They grazed cattle from Thermopolis to the Crow Reservation in Montana. It was estimated that they had as many as 25,000 cattle before the harsh winter of 1886-87. The ML Ranch lost roughly half of their cattle to exposure and starvation that winter. The beginning of the end of huge cattle round ups on the open range had arrived

Working for the ML Ranch

“Do you smoke and do you wear suspenders?” If you were applying for a job with the ML ranch, that was one of your interview questions. If you answered yes to the first and no to the second, Lovell would not hire you. He would say that you would spend most of your time rolling cigarettes and the rest of it pulling up your pants. If you were hired you would be supplied with a horse, but would have to supply your own saddle, bridle, and blanket. For several weeks you would be out on the range involved in the massive round ups and then ten days on the trail moving the cattle from the ML Ranch to Billings, Montana.

Roxie Cook told the story of being on the stage from Billings to Lovell in 1896. She remembered meeting a large herd of cattle being driven to market near Pryor Gap. There were at least 10,000 head, 25 to 30 cowboys and it took several very dusty hours to move the cattle past the stage. All of them were branded with the ML brand.

Partnership Dissolves

Anthony L. Mason died in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 20, 1892. A portion of the partners’ cattle were sold and those proceeds were divided among Mason’s heirs. Lovell continued to ranch until his death in 1903.