ABN Ranch

ABN Ranch
Near Loma and Fort Benton, Montana
Owners/Managers: Rick Anderson & Family

Bordering several miles of the Missouri River, the unfarmed rangelands on the ABN Ranch still look largely as they did when Lewis and Clark passed here in 1805 and 1806.

Like many of the farms and ranches in this part of the state, the ABN Ranch began as a homestead in the early 1900s. It was in 1917, after an earlier operation here had failed, that Andrew E. Anderson bought the first portion of what became the present-day ranch. A blacksmith who had migrated from Iowa, Anderson slowly purchased other neighboring homesteads whose owners either died or came upon hard times. And, like others in this exceptionally dry part of Montana, Anderson himself lost some of the land he had acquired in the course of setbacks during the Great Depression.

Anderson and his heirs managed to survive here in part by making steady improvements to some of the first irrigation systems to appear in this area of the state, thus increasing the land's productivity. Diversifying the family operation also has played an integral role in its survival. Besides producing superior cattle, the ABN Ranch produces wheat, barley and other crops annually. Prolonged drought beginning in the late 1990s has led to a sharp reduction in livestock numbers, but the result has been continued, sustained natural productivity of the rangeland vegetation.

Directions to this ranch:
This ranch is accessible only to floaters through the Missouri River Breaks National Monument. The pull-out is on the south side of the river, at Mile 46.5.

Undaunted Stewardship® is a cooperative and multi-faceted program led by federal, state and private sector agencies, seeking to ensure the long-term maintenance of the environmental quality and economic productivity of privately-owned agricultural landscapes, especially in areas rich in history along the Lewis & Clark Trail in Montana.