CRILE BAR GUEST RANCH
UTICA, MONTANA CIRCLEBARRANCH.COM
IT’S THE COOL DAWN OF A SUMMER DAY IN MONTANA. And the cowboys at the Circle Bar Guest Ranch are driving in the horses from their overnight pasture. The palominos, buckskins, paints, and other colorful horses are like an artist’s palette, as the energetic herd trots in, driven by a handful of wranglers decked out in traditional cowboy regalia. Looks like a scene out of a Charlie Russell painting.
Charlie would feel right at home. In fact, this still pristine part of central Montana was Russell’s home. The man many consider the greatest Western artist of all time spent the 1880s as a cowboy here in the Judith River basin, a crystal-clear stream that flows right through the Circle Bar. And for two years, the teen then known as Kid Russell stayed in a nearby cabin with mountain man Jake Hoover. The well-preserved log structure still stands today, and the Circle Bar will take you to see it.
“Charlie lived here from 1880 to 1882,” says tour guide Alice True, part of the True family that owns the ranch. “He came here when he was 16, and Jake kind of took pity on him…And so he helped him get on his feet for a couple of years.”
Russell often painted scenes from his cowboy days here, including , capturing a rowdy incident in the old frontier town you pass
