Set far back from U.S. 40 in a lush meadow along the Yampa River are a large, two-story frame ranch house with several additions, a bungalow bunk-house, and various barns. The complex, which started as a ranch in 1905 and was acquired by the Carpenter family in 1926, boasts Herefords “Better in Every Weigh.” To preserve the 957-acre ranch, the Carpenter family, which owns it, has arranged future ownership and operation by the Nature Conservancy.
Farrington R. “Ferry” Carpenter tells his own story in Confessions of a Maverick: An Autobiography (1984). With a B.A. from Princeton and a Harvard Law School diploma, he chose to become a gentleman rancher. After the 1934 passage of the Taylor Grazing Act, he went to Washington as the Agriculture Department's first director of grazing. By balancing the interests of his fellow ranchers, conservationists, and the federal government, Carpenter implemented the plan to both use and conserve public lands despite the reservations of suspicious stockmen.