1609 Donald Ave, Ponca City, OK 7460

 
Official site of the historic 101 Ranch
Al Ritter, Web site Editor
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President's Letter

Dear Members and Site Visitors,

It is now time to hear mower sounds throughout the land and especially the 101 Ranch site.  Recent flood water from the Salt Fork River running through the 101 Ranch slowed the spring time grass growth down but that was only temporary and our annual mowing and upkeep cost to maintain the headquarters is back in place.
 
We have our second information sign erected at the Ranch and there are more to come. Our official dedication of the second sign is scheduled for the afternoon of June 6th.
 
I had an interesting phone call from Mr. Vance Hand of Bettendorf, Iowa. Vance was born on the 101 Ranch in 1928 where his Dad and Granddad worked in the packing house. Vance was full of memories and he said he had an elephant bell which surprised me. Neither of us realized that the 101 Ranch elephants wore bells.
 
Does anyone have any additional information or recollection of this?
 
I hinted that our museum would be tickled to have it but he said his kids were interested in the 101 so I doubt if we will ever see it. Perhaps one of them would loan it to the museum at some later date.
 
It is rare we can afford to purchase any item related to the history of the Ranch but we always welcome loan items or donations.
 
Best to all,

Jean Evans, President
101 Ranch O.T.A.

 

Vice President's Letter

Dear Members and Site Visitors,
 
While moving into early summer, we are looking forward to hosting our 6th annual wine tasting fundraiser on June 19. As in the past, it will be held at Marland’s Grand Home in Ponca City. Ticket sales are expected to begin the latter part of May. If you can’t attend, don’t forget we accept donations too!
 
Thanks to funding provided by the Salt Fork River Valley Ranch & Farm Tours (www.saltforktours.com) and the Tonkawa Indian Tribe, our second visitors information sign has been completed and installed at the 101 Ranch. Its official dedication is scheduled for June 6.  Co-coordinating with a tour group scheduled to visit the Ranch that Saturday, the event is set for 2:15 PM. The information podium style sign text is on the subject of Native American involvement in the 101 Ranch. That text can be found in our recent membership newsletter and on our web site.
 
Work on a third sign is underway and it will provide an overview of the history of the once mighty 101 Ranch. We look forward to having it completed and installed this summer.
 
Our goal with the sign project is to allow visitors to the Ranch to depart with more information than they arrived with. Over the course of a year, a remarkable amount of people stop and tour the remnants of the Ranch only to find little actual history available at the site…until now.
 
Information dissemination is a big part of our organization’s function.
 
In example, in March we displayed membership information and spoke with people attending the 101 Ranch Collectors Annual Western Show held in Ponca City. Later that month, we set up again and provided information at the Silvertop Farm & Vineyard (www.theSilvertop.com) located in the Salt Fork River Valley near the Ranch while helping entertain a touring group of education professionals from the Tulsa Area.
 
Don’t forget to consider attending our annual Reunion and business meeting to be held at the Moose Lodge in Ponca City, OK on August 8, 2009. We look forward to enlisting new members while entertaining existing members.

Al Ritter
Vice President, 101 Ranch OTA

 

1929
25th Anniversary Round Up

 

 

Native American Involvement in the 101 Ranch

By Al Ritter

It is very likely that without the involvement and cooperation of various local and national Indian tribes, the 101 Ranch which operated from 1893 to 1936, could have been as successful as it once was.

Having been acquainted with the Ponca Tribe prior to its relocation to present day Kay County, Oklahoma, the Miller family developed a long standing relationship with the tribe and its leaders, notably Chief White Eagle ( 1835-1914) and former war chief, Little Standing Buffalo. According to early day Ponca City resident, Corb Sarchet in a published account from 1929, “No Indian ever went hungry; none was ever in want of anything if the Millers knew it. They participated in the Indian powwows, taught them how to plant and harvest, preached their funerals, saw that they had school houses, worked out their business difficulties and were brothers in every sense.”

Colonel George W. Miller and son Joe Miller were instrumental in tribal movement from temporary quarters near Baxter Springs, Kansas in 1879 to near the convergence of the Salt Fork and Arkansas Rivers where they remain today.

Under lease agreements with both the Ponca and the Otoe Tribes, the 101 Ranch began its growth to more than 100,000 acres of agricultural and grazing land. In 1903, the Miller family paid the Ponca and Otoe $32,500 annual rental fees for much of the 50,000 acres then comprising the ranch. Needless to say, that amount of money in 1903 was a significant sum.

Success of the 101 Ranch was directly related to good relationships with the five area tribes, the Ponca, Tonkawa, Otoe, Osage and Kaw. Without Native American cooperation, it is doubtful the ranch would have grown to its international standing as America’s largest diversified farm and ranch.

Ponca Chief White Eagle
Long time Chief White Eagle of the Ponca Tribe was a friend to the Miller family and a principle tribal chief after Chief Standing Bear's tenure.

Native Americans played a significant role in the ranch’s entertainment venue. When the Miller Brothers launched their touring 101 Ranch Wild West in 1907, Native Americans were featured members of the performing cast. Native American scholar Rennard Strickland once said, “Oklahoma Indians have historically loved to perform, to play and dance for themselves or crowds, to ‘play Indian’.”

From the time the 101 Ranch Wild West Show began touring in 1907 until it closed in Washington, D.C. in August of 1931, it had toured vast amounts of the United States, Mexico, South America and Europe. Generally cast as defenders of their ancient life styles battling against the white man’s incursion during America’s frontier days, an amazing amount of Native Americans performed in the traveling shows and later 101 Bison film productions. These included Ponca, Otoes, Osage, Kaw, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Winnebago, Kiowas, Comanches, Arapaho, Tonkawa, Apaches and Sioux.

A short list of notable Native Americans once associated with the 101 Ranch must include the likes of the fierce Mescalero Apache Geronimo who appeared during 1905 in the company of Edward Le Clair Sr., a Ponca tribal leader. Former high chief of the Sioux, Lone Bear who was present at General George Custer’s ill fated Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 was involved in early day movie making by the 101 Ranch Bison Films Company in the early 1900’s.

Another 101 Ranch Bison film player, Luther Standing Bear, a Dakota Sioux who worked as a movie extra and actor in movie production became known as an expert archery marksman. Iron Tail of the Ogallala Sioux toured with the 101 Ranch Wild West Shows and credited by the Millers with having his profile featured on the U.S. minted 1913 Indian Head Buffalo nickel. Ponca Chief Good Boy played an important part in the 1927 tribal wedding of Joe Miller and Mary Verlin.

Like everyone else associated with the ‘Fabulous Empire’ that was once the 101 Ranch, these original Americans have long since passed into the spirit world.

Today, their absence does nothing to diminish their contribution to helping establish a legacy, either real or imagined that was once the 101 Ranch and the frontier days of America.

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The flag plaza found at the edge of what once was the drive way of the 101 Ranch store at the headquarters site. The three lighted flags from left to right are the Oklahoma state flag, the U.S. flag and 101 Ranch flag. The three flags are flown during the year and replaced during the summer when they go to auction at the annual 101 Ranch OTA membership meeting in August. The 2009 meeting is set for August 8 in Ponca City, OK.

 

 

Spur

 

 

Expert trick riders, a troupe of European Cossacks joined the 101 Ranch Wild West Show after fleeing oppressive political conditions during the first 101 Ranch tour of Europe. Two of them are seen here during practice. They were billed as, 'Equestrian Rivals of the Cow-Boy'.

 

 

Always a perennial favorite part of the Wild West Show first introduced in the original 1905 show, Native American performers attack the settlers wagon train complete with plenty of loud blank gunfire, black powder smoke and swirling dust. The act was seen in a number of subsequent movie scenes.

 

 

Native Americans were principally playing themselves in a number of 101 Bison westerns filmed at Inceville near present day Santa Monica, CA. around 1912. Indians, cowboys and livestock from the 101 Ranch provided authenticity not found in other early westerns.

 

 

During the early 1900's, Indian men touring with the Wild West Shows received $5 a week in cash while the Millers furnished water and feed for the pony herds, medical care,beef, moccasins and headdresses while women were paid $4 a week as performers.

 

 

Native Americans

Native Americans, particularly the Ponca Tribe, were an important part of 101 Ranch operation. Always welcome at the Miller family residence, they performed in the Wild West Shows and leased a large amount of land to the Ranch that helped comprise the 110,000 acres that the Millers farmed and ranched. During Col. Joe Miller's second marriage, the Ponca Tribe conducted a ceremonial tribal wedding for he and his bride.

 

Princess Wenona

Lillian Francis Smith who preformed as Princess Wenona while with the 101 Ranch Wild West Show from 1911 to 1916. She returned to the ranch late in life but died destitute near it in 1930. Her accomplishments during her performing career equaled or surpassed that of Annie Oakley but unlike Oakley, international recognition escaped her. Her grave was unmarked until the 101 Ranch OTA and its supporters intervened in 1999.