The handwritten memoirs of one of the most influential people living in the region during Montana's nascent statehood were delivered this week to their new home in Yellowstone National Park's archives
Dick Randall, founder and owner of the OTO Dude Ranch just outside the park's northern boundary, wrote stories of guiding kings and presidents into the wilds of Montana and Wyoming in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
An avid hunter and outdoorsman, Randall counted Theodore Roosevelt and the King of Prussia among the "dudes" he escorted on game hunts from the ranch, which he established in 1896, said George Perkins.
Perkins, who grew up in New England, often visited the Randalls on their ranch when he was a child. Randall's daughter, Bess Randall Erskine, gave Perkins the documents "for safekeeping" a few years before she died at 97 years old.
That was about 20 years ago, he said.
He stored the nearly two-dozen stories - all written in pencil on yellow lined school paper -- in a white plastic box.
But now that he is in his 80s, Perkins decided to give the documents the ultimate protection they deserve by giving them to the park's historian, Lee Whittlesey, he said.
"Lee is really the reason these are going in there," Perkins told the Chronicle. "Lee was the one who explained the importance of protecting them and the historical significance of the stories.
"I'm very, very happy that we can get them into the archives," he said.
He flew to Bozeman Tuesday, drove to Yellowstone and hand delivered the documents to Whittlesey.
"I guess George is getting old and he wanted us to have them," Whittlesey said. The stories "are important in that they represent the reminiscences of a man important to the region. In the history of Yellowstone they stand very tall."
Randall bought the 7,000-acre ranch from two train-robbing squatters "when the park was a park, but nobody went to it," Perkins said. In addition to running the ranch, he might have been one of the first stagecoach drivers in the park.
The stories, which Randall read on Livingston's KPRK radio station in the early 1950s, reflect just how steeped in history the ranch and its original proprietor were.
In "The First Fall of the Hindenburg Line," Randall wrote of his experience guiding German Gen. Paul von Hindenburg on a hunting trip before von Hindenburg became Germany's second president.
Randall said the general told him: "I am going to cable my folks that I am putting myself in your care for 30 days in the wilds of America, and you are responsible for my safe return to civilization."
But Randall had a counter offer.
"Now wait a minute, General," he'd said. "Just tell them I will return you safe barring accident, and if dead, your remains will be shipped home."
To which von Hindenburg replied, "America is very cold-blooded."
Well, "Dutchey," as the guides dubbed the general, survived his hunting trip, but not without tribulation.
It seems the military man was so obsessed with taking trophies -- he got quite a few -- he'd often stop to shoot and lose track of the hunting party. And it was a big hunting party, including a long line of pack horses made longer by von Hindenburg's insistence on bringing necessities like a gramophone and its large horn.
The gramophone didn't fare too well either, Randall wrote. It got smashed against trees as it was hauled through the dense woods and "was out of commission until the horn was pounded so that there could be a noise through it," according to the story
Randall also hosted President Teddy Roosevelt, a passionate hunter who refused to begin dedication ceremonies for Yellowstone's Roosevelt Arch until Randall came up on the podium with him, Perkins said.
"The man was an incredible human being," Perkins said of Randall, whom he called his adopted grandfather.
Randall will be inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Helena in February.
"He was a great storyteller," Perkins added. "But they were all true stories.
Jodi Hausen can be reached at jhausen@dailychronicle.com or 582-2630. Read her blog at jhausen.wordpress.com or follow her on Twitter @bozemancrime.
BREAK OUT: Founded in 1896, the OTO Dude Ranch still stands on 3,000 acres just outside Gardiner in the Gallatin National Forest. However, a dwindling federal budget has made maintenance and upkeep difficult. So a group of "friends" has started a nonprofit organization to save it. Friends of the Historic OTO Dude Ranch will hold a fundraising event at the ranch on August 7.
WHAT: Breakfast and open house at the OTO Ranch; all-you-can-eat pancake and sausage breakfast from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by tours, music and slide shows until 5 p.m.
WHEN: Aug. 7.
WHERE: OTO Ranch -- Take U.S. Highway 89 South from Livingston to mile marker 10, turn left onto Cedar Creek Road
COST: $5 for breakfast, open house free. Donations go towards restoration and maintenance of the historic 1890s dude ranch
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