1. The accompanying photo was taken in the only unit in the entire National Park System that has the word “ranch” in its name. Can you name this National Park System unit?

2. What ranch in a National Park System unit is considered to be the “Birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt’s Conservation Ethic”?

3. What National Park System unit has a ranch that has posed as Tombstone, Arizona and Dodge City, Kansas?

4. True or false? Phantom Ranch in Grand Canyon National Park was once a working cattle ranch.

5. True or false? Motorists who want to use their private vehicles to tour the LBJ Ranch, a component of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, must first get a driving pass at a state park.

6. It was a ranch in name only, and the building ensconced on the site is now burned out, but the _____ in Death Valley National Park gained ever-lasting notoriety when celebrity criminal Charles Manson was arrested there in 1969.
a. Barker Ranch
b. Williams Ranch
c. Hell’s Fire Ranch
d. Badwater Ranch

7. Created through the purchase of an historic ranch and recently buffered through the purchase of a conservation easement on an adjacent ranch, ______ is still used for cattle grazing.
a. Pecos National Historical Park
b. Homestead National Monument of America
c. Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
d. Agate Fossil Beds National Monument

8. The former JY Ranch is now part of ______ and has been renamed the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve.
a. Grand Teton National Park
b. Glacier National Park
c. Rocky Mountain National Park
d. Yellowstone National Park

9. The enabling legislation for Point Reyes National Seashore specified that Point Reyes Peninsula ranchers who sold their land to the federal government would receive
a. renewable leases to continue ranching in the park
b. nonrenewable 20-year leases to continue ranching in the park
c. ranching leases on federal land of equivalent size and quality outside the park
d. a grace period of five years to cease grazing operations in the park

10. The ______ was established in Yellowstone National Park in 1907 to raise bison to add to the park's natural herd.
a. Yellowstone Buffalo Ranch
b. Norris Buffalo Ranch
c. Mammoth Hot Springs Buffalo Ranch
d. Lamar Buffalo Ranch

Extra Credit Question:

11. Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Ranch resort occupies a site that was once part of a ranch that went by a different name, a name that is associated with an amazing record established there nearly a century ago. Can you name this historic ranch and the remarkable event that occurred there in 1913?

Super Bonus Question:

12. In which national park can you visit a ranch that had a U.S. Army Air Corps airfield, a ranch whose name includes the word for a common wood fastener, and a ranch that includes the name of a leading character in a long-running animated television series conceived by Matt Groening?

Answers:

(1) The photo was taken in Montana's Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, the only National Park System unit that has the word “ranch” in its name.

(2) The Elkhorn Ranch, remnants of which are now part of North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, was once owned by President Theodore Roosevelt, who repeatedly stated that his abiding interest in conservation causes was rooted in his experiences at his Elkhorn Ranch.

(3) Now a component of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the 2,700-acre Paramount Ranch (aka Paramount Movie Ranch) had sets used to produce numerous movies, including classic westerns. There is still a “western town” on the site for visitors to enjoy.

(4) False. Architect Mary Colter picked the name Phantom Ranch for the tourist facility that the Fred Harvey Company hired her to design, even though the site was never used as a ranch.

(5) True. Motorists who want to tour the LBJ Ranch in their private vehicles must first obtain a free driving pass at the LBJ State Park and Historic Site visitor center, which is located across the Pedernales River from the LBJ Ranch.

(6) a – The Barker Ranch in Death valley National Park continues to draw curious visitors, despite its remote location and the fact that the building Manson occupied was burned in a suspicious fire.

(7) c – The National Park Trust purchased the historic Spring Hill/Z-Bar Ranch in 1994, paving the way for the establishment of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, which is now owned by The Nature Conservancy and co-managed by TNC, the National Park Service, and the Kansas Park Trust. In 2008, TNC acquired a 2,000-acre conservation easement on ranchland bordering the preserve.

(8) a -- The 1,106-acre JY Ranch, a dude ranch that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. purchased in 1932, was signed over to Grand Teton National Park by his son Laurance in 2007.

(9) a – The enabling legislation for Point Reyes National Seashore provided that ranchers who sold their land to the federal government would receive renewable leases to continue their pastoral operations. The areas and structures used for grazing activities, a land use that dates to the Spanish colonial era on the Point Reyes Peninsula, comprise the park’s Pastoral Zone, which currently has around 30 beef and dairy operations.

(10) d -- Yellowstone’s historic Lamar Buffalo Ranch continued to raise bison for the park until the 1950s. The property is now being used by the Yellowstone Institute.

(11) Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Ranch resort was developed on the former Greenland Ranch, which is the officially listed place where America’s record high temperature of 134 degrees was recorded on July 10, 1913.

(12) Big Bend National Park fills the bill. The park's Johnson Ranch had an informal airfield that the Army Air Corps used from 1929 until the late 1930s. The Sam Nail Ranch and the Homer Wilson Blue Creek Ranch are also located in Big Bend.

Grading: 9 or 10 correct, rest on your laurels; 7 or 8 correct, pretty darn good; 6 correct, passable fair; 5 or fewer correct, nothing to brag about.