I just got home after spending three fabulous days at the O.T.O. dude ranch, outside of Gardiner, Montana. It was Montana’s first dude ranch, and though it was only open for about twenty-five years, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s also a legend. And that’s because of its legendary founder, Dick Randall.

He came West from Iowa in the 1880s, and he and his friend June Buzzell had a cabin in Gardiner, near the north entrance to Yellowstone, where they had a business trading horses and leading pack trips for hunters coming from back East and Europe.

Dick Randall was one of the best-known guides in the area and decided he needed to expand. He bought a larger cabin near Cedar Creek, about twelve miles from Gardiner. He got a good deal on the place because the men who owned it had been robbing the Yellowstone stage and they needed to go on the lam.

Dick and his wife Dora built a barn, added cabins, and started hosting visitors who had come to take one of Dick’s celebrated hunting trips. In 1912 they started taking paying guests and the O.T.O. dude ranch was born.

Dude ranches often have charismatic founders, and that was definitely the case with the O.T.O. I gave a talk about the ranch’s history during my stay, and I said that if Dick Randall was a dog, he would be a Golden Retriever; bounding into the room, licking everybody’s face, and then pulling people outside to have fun. Guests returned to the O.T.O. year after year, because he gave them experiences they never forgot.

The ranch closed in 1939, and was then privately owned until the 1990s. Today, it’s managed by the USDA Forest Service, which has been working to preserve the remaining buildings. Last year, they partnered with True Ranch Collection to open the O.T.O. to guests again during the summer, with all proceeds going to help with historic preservation.

They held the “Yellowstone Pop Up Ranch” again this year, and I was there. Dick might be long gone, but he left his imprint on the O.T.O. and, like hundreds of his other guests, I also had an unforgettable experience.

One of the reasons was the ranch’s authenticity. During its lifetime most of the guest cabins did not have showers or indoor plumbing, though they did have electricity. The cabins are still historically accurate — but better. Each has electricity (including a power strip for charging devices) and a glamorous private bathhouse.

Good food is also part of the O.T.O.’s heritage, and a line from a late 1920s brochure remains true: “The O.T.O. has long enjoyed the reputation of serving excellent meals–the menus are as varied and as enticing as we can possibly make them, the quality of the food is of the best, enhanced by an abundance.”

I can vouch for this, especially the varied part: I had elk for the first time. Now I understand why all the characters in C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett novels eat elk. Delicious. Not only that, every morning one of the staff would drop off a tray of coffee, pastry, and fruit on each cabin’s porch, and an hour later would serve us a huge breakfast in the main lodge.

Dude ranches have always been (and still are) all about service. I can’t say enough about the young people who are in charge of the O.T.O. No matter what their job was, they made sure we had what we needed. I’ve never been so pampered in such a rustic place, and I want to say thank you to: Amy, Carleigh, Gabe, Janay, Jeff, Locke, Mandla, and Sarah. You guys are the best, and I’m also grateful for the new skill you taught me: how to use a can of bear spray.

As a historian, I was thrilled by the O.T.O.’s century-old buildings, the artifacts on display, and a night sky so dark I could see the Milky Way.

The other guests at the ranch made my time even more meaningful. I read a lot of first-person accounts from dude ranch guests and staff when I was writing my book, American Dude Ranch. Nearly all of them talked about how friendships were formed among people who started as strangers. Some groups returned to the same dude ranch over and over for decades just to see each other, and I’m not surprised.

Actually, friends of mine were at the O.T.O. with me: Katherine, Janet, Mitch, and Wendy. And there were four other guests on hand: David, his sons Bryant and Sam, and grandson Wyatt, age nine. It didn’t take long for all of us to start hanging out, which also made me feel like I was in the 1920s, and not the 2020s.

A hundred years ago, guests spent the evenings together in the lodge, listening to music, playing cards, chatting over drinks, or sitting outside around a huge campfire. We did the same things, which was not only fun, it was the kind of slowing-down that busy 21st century people don’t always have. Spending a couple of evenings playing gin rummy with David and Katherine in the quiet, historic lodge was like time travel to an older O.T.O.

1920s dudes at the O.T.O. Courtesy True Ranch Collection.

Another reason my trip was such a blast was because of nine-year-old Wyatt. He was ready for anything, and participated in every activity: trail rides, archery, swimming in the Yellowstone Hot Springs, and keeping the campfire going. He was completely comfortable with a bunch of strange adults, and told us stories during every meal. I loved seeing the dude ranch through a youngster’s eyes, and I was reminded of what Dick Randall wrote in a brochure: “Let Your Children Be Cowboys.”

Wyatt said something around the fire our first evening that made us smile, because we all felt the same way: “I’m so happy there’s a place like this in the world.”

Dick would be pleased.