Historical Agnew Ranch Sells Thursday

The historical Agnew Ranch, located 20 miles south of Lusk at the foot of Rawhide Buttes on Rawhide Creek, was sold last Thursday to Bill Poage, rancher from the Torrington area.

The ranch had been in the Agnew and Ord families for 70 years and following is a brief history of the ranch as told to The Herald by Mrs. Roy (Gertrude Ord) Chamberlain:

In 1902 John Agnew and Robert Ord, brothers-in-law, bought the original Rawhide Ranch from Russell Thorpe Sr. and ran it in partnership as a sheep and cattle ranch until 1914 when the partnership was dissolved and Robert Ord bought the ranch adjoining it on the north and John Agnew continued to develop the Rawhide Ranch until it extended west to Platte County.

When Agnew and Ord purchased the ranch in 1902 it was still much as it had been as a stage station on the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage Line. Mr. Thorpe had owned and operated the stage line with headquarters there at the Rawhide Ranch until 1887 when the Northwestern Railroad came to Lusk and the stage business became unprofitable.

William Agnew, the father of John and Mayme (Mrs. Robert Ord) Agnew, became postmaster at the Rawhide Post Office. There was also a general store there at the time and a well-equipped blacksmith shop where the stage horses had been shod and if necessary harnesses repaired.

When Robert Ord brought his young wife Mayme and daughter out to Wyoming from Nebraska, Russell Thorpe Jr. met them at the train in Lusk with the stagecoach which his father owned and which is now in the Lusk Museum.

Mr. Agnew, who died in September 1965, left his ranch and estate to his nieces and nephews—Marjorie Ord Kaan, Gertrude Ord Chamberlain, Jeanette Ord Sager, Harry Charles Sager, George Darrow and Robert Ord Darrow. Since that time the ranch has been leased to Richard Barnette, a rancher whose ranch adjoins the Agnew Ranch on the south.

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