A little history …

Sterling Ranch Company, as it is now known, was ‘discovered’ in the winter of 1864, by Benjamin Franklin Stickney (read more about this Montana pioneer …). He was a freighter or (as they were sometimes called) a bull whacker hauling freight from Fort Benton, Montana, to the gold camps on Last Chance Gulch — along the Mullen Road in present day Helena.

Stickney was a young man that worked for a old peg-legged man who owned the teams of oxen and wagons. He left Fort Benton late in the freighting season and was one of the last to get to Helena with his goods. He thought he could make it back to Fort Benton before winter set in. As it turned out, winter hit hard one night when he was encamped, and his oxen left him to seek shelter out of the storm.

He was able to trail them across the frozen Missouri River and up a creek to where two forks of a creek met. There, Stickney built a small log cabin out of the cottonwood trees along the creek, to stay in for the winter. The cabin had no windows and only a small hole to crawl in for a door. There also was plenty of grass for the oxen to eat. So, this is where Stickney spent the winter of 1864-1865. The creek was later named Stickney Creek after him.

The people of Fort Benton told the old man that Stickney had run off with his oxen and that he would never see them again. The old man kept telling everyone that this wasn’t the case, but no one believed him. They were all fooled when Stickney came back that spring with the oxen and wagons.

The old man wanted him to stay on, but Stickney liked the area where he had wintered and decided to go there to settle.  He later married, and with his family, homesteaded in the area adding to the land holdings.

About the Name

One of his daughters married Joe Sterling, and that is where the name Sterling comes into play.  Joe and his wife and their only son, Frank Sterling, kept either homesteading or buying property around Craig in what is now the Holter Lake areas. In 1924 they decided to incorporate the business.

The ranch was first a cattle ranch, but when the wolves put them out of the cattle business, it was then run as a sheep operation herders until around the time of World War II. At that time they went back to cattle, due to the lack of available labor force.

In the 1950s, Frank’s youngest daughter, Joyce, and husband Gary Blackman moved back to the ranch.  Gary worked with his father-in-law until Frank Sterling’s passing in 1983. Their son, Scott, started working on the ranch in 1980.

The Current Operation

The feedlot and irrigated farm at Vaughn was purchased in 1999 as a place to market and develop the ranch cattle. This side of the business is called Sterling Cattle LLC.

The maze and agri-tourism venture was added as a way for those not involved with agriculture to learn about farming/ranching as an interactive experience. As the Blackmans like to say “Come on out, have fun and get dirty!”

Currently the ranch is owned by the heirs of Frank Sterling, being of the fourth, fifth and sixth generation descendants of B. F. Stickney.  It is managed by Scott and Raina Blackman.  The ranch raises natural cattle that are sold to the markets such as Painted Hills Natural Beef of Fossil, Oregon.