We drove from Deadwood to Cheyenne Wyoming. On the way we stopped at Fort Laramie. Fort Laramie started as a fur trading post and in 1849 was bought by the government and used as headquarters for various military campaigns. The Fort was abandoned in 1890. Some of the land and buildings were auctioned off and the area fell into disrepair. Somewhere around 1925 Wyoming preservationists took it under their wing and today it is part of the National Park Service.

A guy by the name of Charles Terry owned this property during the mid-1800. According to our guide the ranch is on over 27,000 acres and it actually extends a little bit into Colorado. Mr. Terry sold the land to F.E. Warren who was the first Territorial Governor of Wyoming. He purchased the ranch from Charles Terry in 1885.

In 1987, the ranch was bought by Dan Thiel and was incorporated, under the name of Horseshoe Bison, Inc. The company started as a small bison meat distribution and horse trading company and today it continues in that tradition.

The ranch has a variety of animals, they do trail riding, have an RV park with cabin rentals, a restaurant, and the Terry Town Express. A train that goes through the ranch and as you can see you can get up close and personal with the Bison. We only had two of the older bison come by the train. Fred was doing a little bit of the feeding of the bison. Yesterday they had the birth of 2 baby bison. Bison are herding animals and when the train came by they herded around the babies to protect them. Still pretty neat to see the different animals.

The grave marker is for a bison that lived on the ranch for 35 years, Tinker. When Tinker died he weighed over 2200 pounds.

One interesting note about the ranch, the brand on its animals is 7XL. Bizarre brand you say? Well legend has it that brand was chosen because if the cowboys went out and had a big night on the town and had too much to drink, the next day if they accidentally flipped the brand over, it would still read 7XL. Interesting to say the least.

And as you can see, I took in a little riding while at the ranch.