Lifetime Leaders of Rodeo & Ranching Rodeo Ranching Great Westerner Western Entertaiment & Arts Rodeo Producers & Livestock Special Achievement Cowboy Long Rider Legacy Award

Ranching

Taylor Ranch
2010 Award
Ranches Division

The Taylor Ranch is situated in the sand hills of McHenry County, the third most populous cattle county in the state. The four Taylor brothers arrived in Towner in 1900 from Montgomery County, Indiana. They operated a livery stable in town, a brick plant east of Towner and the cattle and horse ranch toward the southeast.

In 1927, the livery stable was partially dismantled and moved to the ranch by teams of horses. That barn is still in use today. Cattle and horses were grazed on Taylor pastures and on unfenced and unclaimed surrounding land.

The Taylors were raising registered Purebred Herefords as early as 1915 and, although a series of tragedies took the lives of the three men on the ranch within two years, their widows regrouped, put the cattle out on shares and moved into town with the children. Pearl, the matriarch, had bought those Herefords with her school teaching pay and in her own name - about the time women were finally allowed to vote! When Bud, Pearl's youngest son turned 18, he moved back out to reclaim the family's cattle and horse-raising legacy.

Bud served in the South Pacific in World War II, came back home and began ranching again. The Taylor family helped build the rodeo arena in Towner for the first RCA Rodeo in 1951. And it was the Taylor Ranch that introduced one of the area's first registered Quarter horse studs in 1956.

Ryan Taylor is the fourth generation to own and run cattle on the same place, and there's already a fifth generation in the wings learning the ropes and leads. As Ryan notes: "the ranch isn't the biggest in the state, comprising 3,200 mostly contiguous acres of sandy rangeland and native hay meadows, but it's never been a passive investment for distant shareholders or a holding that came without great hardship and sacrifice. It's not a farming outfit - 90 per cent of the ranch has never been broken by the plow. It's a cowboy outfit that's still managed from the back of a horse."

It's a 107-year-old family homestead that was started from scratch - no railroad acres, open range or land purchases made with outside money. Strong, resilient ranch women persevered and kept the ranch intact after their husbands died.