After
riding a stagecoach in Buffalo Bill s Wild West show at Madison Square
Garden in 1910, Princeton student Iriving H. Larry Larom was determined
to live a life in the West. Later that year, Larom made the first of
four summer trips to Wyoming, where he was a guest at Jim McLaughlin s
Valley Ranch, nestled in a scenic valley in the upper South Fork of the
Shoshone River. Larom became so enamored of the magnificent wilderness
environment and the prospects of becoming a dude rancher that he
abandoned his life as a New York socialite. Partnering with Brooks
Brothers heir and Yale student Winthrop Brooks, he purchased Valley
Ranch in 1915.
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A welcome study of early dude ranch development, Dude Ranching in Yellowstone Country preserves the history of an important Wyoming ranch and the man who built it. |
W. Hudson Kensel recounts the life of Larom,
whose East Coast connections to financial resources and wealthy guests
enabled him to transform McLaughlin's small homestead into a major
tourist destination and prep school on the edge of Yellowstone National
Park. The purchase of Valley Ranch coincided with the opening of
Yellowstone to automobile traffic and the onset of World War I. Valley
Ranch benefited as western parks and dude ranches became destinations
for weary city dwellers and travelers looking for a vacation
alternative to war-torn Europe. Besides making the ranch a success,
Larom became a civic leader in Cody, Wyoming, a nationally recognized
conservationist, and a founder and longtime president of the Dude
Ranchers Association.
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Dude Ranching in
Yellowstone Country
Larry Larom and Valley Ranch, 1915-1969
by W. Hudson Kensel
Arthur H Clark, 2010
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a copy
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