Ranching history preserved in old barns

FORT KLAMATH — There was a time the barns at the Nicholson Ranch were jammed with milking cows, draft horses and all sorts of ranching odds-and-ends. The cows and horses are gone, but the barns resonate with the history of times past. “I think we've got to preserve the past,” quietly but forcefully insists Bill Nicholson, 80, whose grandfather, William Elmore Nicholson, purchased the then 320-acre ranch from George Shepard in 1898. “Future generations need to know now this county and country was formed.” In recent years the ranch and neighboring lands, a total of about 960 acres have been leased out to ranchers from Dixon, Calif., who move 1,300 to 1,400 Angus cross cattle to the Wood River Valley for summer grazing. Nicholson has retreated from many of the day-to-day chores, turning those responsibilities over to Butch Wampler. Instead of ranching, Nicholson is focused on preserving the area history, including the two barns on his family ranch. The horse barn was built about 1918 while the milking barn dates back to 1932. The horse barn, which held 21 draft horses and had a harness room, serves as a still-developing museum that features the history of the Nicholson family and early valley settlers. The milking barn, with 50 stanchions, where the 100 cows in the Nicholson Ranch's Cloverdale Dairy were milked twice a day, emphases the dairy history. Both are filled with photos, from ranches and ranching families like the Wamplers and Sisemores to old barns and winter carnivals when Fort Klamath hosted round-trip cross country ski races to Crater Lake. There's horse tack and other items preserved from early ranches and dairies. “That was the big thing here in the '20s,” Nicholson says of dairies, noting there were several dairies and creameries in the Fort Klamath area nearly a hundred years ago...more