Flat Creek Ranch was a private retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, now a guest ranch. The original ranch was established by Cal Carrington between 1901 and 1918 at the base of Sheep Mountain, also known as the Sleeping Indian. In 1923 a new owner, socialite and journalist Cissy Patterson built the present structures. The transition from working ranch to vacation retreat foreshadowed a movement of the Jackson Hole economy away from traditional ranching to tourism, which is documented by the Flat Creek Ranch.
Carrington had worked at the Bar B C Dude Ranch from 1912 on, and established Flat Creek as a dude ranch. Patterson appeared in Jackson Hole 1916 as "Countess Gizycka", on the rebound from a failed marriage to a Polish count. The two toured Europe together in 1922. Through Cissy's influence with US Senator Francis E. Warren, Cal obtained a homestead patent on the ranch, then sold it to Cissy for $5000. In 1923 Cissy built seven cabins, a barn and a lodge on the property.
The property is presently owned by journalists Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel. Albright is the son of Cissy's niece Josephine Patterson Albright (daughter of Joseph Medill Patterson), who inherited the property at Cissy's death in 1948, and former husband of Madeleine Albright.
Famous quotes containing the words flat and/or creek:
“Ask a toad what beauty is, the supreme beauty, the to kalon. He will tell you it is his lady toad with her two big round eyes coming out of her little head, her large flat snout, yellow belly, brown back.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The only law was that enforced by the Creek Lighthorsemen and the U.S. deputy marshals who paid rare and brief visits; or the “two volumes of common law” that every man carried strapped to his thighs.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. relief program (1935-1943)