Distinctly Montana Magazine

In between cattle drives, the Wickens gang likes to rob trains. They gallop from the hills, shooting and shouting, just beyond the Sage Creek trestle, and holdup a Lewistown-bound tourist train almost every Saturday from June until October. They board the train, empty the passenger pockets, tousle the heads of few small cowpokes and ride off into the sunset...just like in the movies. And, yes, they get paid for it, adding the “take” to a growing list of money-making ventures for the “new” ranchers of the 21st century, who have discovered that “cash-cows” are the backbone of a thriving ranch economy. Ranching in Montana, 2011, is a small herd of creative businesses. THE RANCH The Wickens Ranch celebrates its 100th birthday this year. Originally a 160-acre homestead farmed by Indiana transplant John L.Wickens in 1911, the Wickens family holdings of owned and leased land now number in the thousands of acres in remote Fergus County. For about The Wickens Story: 30 of the last 100 years the Wickens Ranch was a farm- ing operation, wheat mostly, gradually shifting to cattle as decades of uncertain markets and the torment of fickle weather gradually stripped reliable profitability from crops. It was in the late 1990s that the John Wickens of a new generation went almost exclusively to cattle, ceding the farmland to grazing. The ranch stretches across a rumple of hills between the Moccasin Mountains and the Missouri Breaks near Win- ifred (pop. 145), where the last train rails were peeled from the grain silos in 1976. It was then, according to John Wickens, that the local economy “turned back to grass,” and cattle ranching became the dominant business. John, his wife, Diane, and their four children have lifetimes in ranching, with sons, Eric and Matt, now trying their hands at the ranch-reins, while Nicole and Jason pursue artistic ventures in Missoula and Bozeman. 80 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • SUMMER 2011

• Cover