Rhubarb Custard Bars & Caroline Lockhart’s Sparks

A few years ago I shared the recipe for Summer’s Best Strawberry-Rhubarb Cheesecake Shortbread Squares and an introduction to Carolyn Lockhart…a woman worthy of causing heated rhubarbs in her day. We’re in the throws of the warm summer months which means rhubarb (the plant not the controversy) is in full harvest mode. It’s also peak travel season for millions around the globe to set out on adventures.

Starting in 2023, the Smithsonian Institution began featuring “Museum on Main Street” exhibits across the U.S. of A. through the “Spark! Places of Innovation” series. (The tour schedule and locations are here.) Through these off-the-beaten-path expos, visitors learn about the creative innovations unique to the people, places and culture in rural locations. Bighorn Canyon NRA and the Homesteader Museum partnered together this year to receive a Smithsonian Spark grant. Showcasing the four historic ranches in BCNRA, ranger-led tours explain how cowboy can-do and pioneer pluck lead to success in this northern Wyoming/Montana land. What’s a better place to start than the Caroline Lockhart Ranch?

Known collectively as the “Dryhead” on the Montana-Wyoming border, Lockhart wasn’t the first inhabitant to this particular area. Before 1891, the Crow Tribe used the land as a seasonal camp. Men ran bison off nearby cliffs into the ravines below where women butchered the carcasses. When the Crow ceded their tribal lands to the U.S. government, homesteaders entered into the region. In 1900, Lincoln Hannon settled the ranch with his wife and two children. They build a small log cabin, now known as the chicken coop on the property.

Five years later, George W. Burkey purchased the land from Hannon and established the Dryhead post office. During Burkey’s time, the main thoroughfare runs past the original buildings and through the ranch property. In 1908-09, the post office closes and the property undergoes another homestead claim by James Wasson. He made major improvements to the ranch. The original log cabin (above) was expanded to include the lean-to for stables. An adjacent round pen was built by a 15-year-old ranch hand, who used it as a wedding venue to wed his 12-year-old bride!

Wasson added a spring house, bunkhouse, tool house, shed and a two-room log house. At this time, the ranch property encompassed 160 acres.

In 1925, Lockhart and her two associates, Lou Ketcham and Lou Erickson, filed individual homestead claims (640 acres each) surrounding Wasson’s original 160 acres. Erickson purchased Wasson’s property in 1926, who then sold it and 480 additional acres to Lockhart. In her June 19th diary entry, Lockhart was optimistic about her new L/Heart Ranch, but is self-loathing about her station in life:

June 19–L Slash Heart ranch–If only I can bring the same excitable ability into action in putting the L Slash Heart ranch on the map that made the ENTERPRISE and Stampede a success, I shall be happy. Not happy, maybe, but satisfied. There is NO happiness for me. Gol durn O.B. I would like to see him a poor man. (O.B. is O.B. Mann, a rancher from northwestern Wyoming near Meeteetsee. He was Caroline’s greatest love, but the feeling was not mutual. The ENTERPRISE is the Cody, Wyoming newspaper she bought and edited from 1920-1925. The Stampede refers to the Cody rodeo celebrating the Old West and Buffalo Bill Cody. Both the Enterprise and the Stampede exist today.)

Caroline Lockhart, Liberated Lady–1870-1962

To put her ranch on the map, Caroline needed help. Ranch hands began coming and going for about $3 a day, including board. Caroline expected her hired help to work cheaply and for whatever purpose she needed accomplished–both for the ranch and self-gratitude projects. (In her birthday diary entry on February 24, 1929, Lockhart reminisces and boasts of the 14 lovers she had to date. A district attorney, horse jockey, champion “bulldogger” and common cowpuncher round out the most memorable for her.) Lying, theft, laziness, or general dislike by her were grounds for automatic walking papers. By late summer of 1926, the ranch had a hand-cranked washing machine, which makes everyone more elated than “if it was a baby grand piano.” I’m sure this modern convenience helped make the drudgery of laundry day more tolerable.

A year later, Caroline began working a deal with Montana’s Carbon County to reroute the Dryhead Road. Caroline ran cattle in open range land where cows and sheep freely grazed across the landscape. Cattle intermingled with other herds and were easily whisked away from their owners. Sheep frequently devoured grasslands for cattle herds. This created a rift between cowboys and shepherds. Caroline also felt the need to control access to precious water on her land. The solution? Put up barbed wire fences along property lines. This upset the status quo of nearby livestock owners, as well as the the Dryhead mail carrier. A public access road, the Dryhead Road ran through the middle of Caroline’s property, making it illegal for Caroline to gate or fence it. When she tried to gate its access, the mailman Jason Fause left the gate open, occuring on average 2-3 times per week as he delivered mail to the post office at Hillsboro. Cattle and sheep continued to wander in and out. After getting county road appropriations arranged, Caroline purchased $300 worth of blasting powder to level rock outcroppings on road spans. By August 1927, county inspectors gave final critiques and recommendations for the rerouted road. However, Caroline’s feud with Fause kept on in the years to come. She continued to buy adjacent land to increase her withholdings in attempts to grow her prowess as the Cattle Queen, as well as push Fause out and off her property.

Between 1927 and 1935, Caroline continued to make the L/Heart Ranch a showpiece and writing refuge in between her trips to her house in Cody (some 74 miles west) and to Kansas to visit family. She expanded the main house into additional living spaces: a bedroom for the cook, and a larger bedroom area subdivided up into three smaller spaces. In the photograph below (1), a smaller bedroom once sat at the far end of the room. A closet area (where the floor is laid left-to-right.) housed Caroline’s substantial seasonal wardrobes. The lower portion, and over 1/2 of the overall space, was Caroline’s personal bedroom. Lumber was purchased and sent by rail to the depot at nearby Kane, Wyoming, about 32 miles south. It was then hauled by wagon over rutted, rocky and hilly roads to the Dryhead. Original cargo notes for Lockhart’s ranch are still visible on the trusses in Caroline’s bedroom.

One to impress, Caroline began construction of the guest cabin in 1928. This cabin sits directly in front of the main house and hosted dignitaries of its day…politicians, actors, famous Indian war chiefs like Plenty Coups, etc. The fireplace inside of the cabin was never paid for. Caroline promised to pay one of her many lovers to do the work, but when he wronged her…she refused to pay him. At some point, Lockhart also had a rudimentary airstrip on a bench on the property. No visible traces remain, other than surmising which section of land was the most level to land a plane on.

A visitor to Lockhart’s ranch in the 1930s-1940’s recalled on the appearance of Caroline’s living room:

He was especially impressed with the ranch house. In the new living room, a davenport, an overstuffed easy chair, and. awooden rocker sat in front of the fireplace. The walls boasted mounted heads of African animals (tiger, gazelle, springbok) and an eighteen-inch-wide snakeskin running two-thirds the length of the room. Navajo rugs covered the floor. Gas and kerosene Aladdin lamps provided illumination since she preferred not to wear down the wind-powered battery for lighting. From the living room, “you had to walk through the kitchen, Dave’s bedroom and the cook’s bedroom” next to the study where Lockhart conducted business. This was also her bedroom, with a white china pitcher, washbowl, and bedchamber pot next to a bed covered in quilts and blankets. Both her bedroom and the living room were newly constructed of attractively varnished logs, but the old rooms between them–the original Hannon homestead–remained in their original condition. At the time the only modern item Spragg saw in those rooms was a kerosene-powered refrigerator; soon she had Pick build a shed to house it, so as to retain the kitchen’s old timely appearance.

She wouldn’t even update the kitchen floors. They had huge gaps between the floor boards, which–authentic though they may have been–allowed in mice. To stem the mouse problem, she kept two bull snakes. “She had them named,” Spragg recalled, “an claimed she could tell them apart…I had one name for both of them, and have used that same name for other things I have a strong dislike for.” Some time latre one of her hands killed one of the snakes; he was immediately fired. In general Spragg found the L Slash Heart “picturesque.”

Clayton, J. (2007). The cowboy girl: The life of Caroline Lockhart. Page 225. University of Nebraska Press.

By July 1937, Caroline housed batteries in the root cellar on the ranch. Wind-powered turbines kept the batteries charged. Electrical wires ran from the batteries along poles across the property for lighting and to operate equipment like radios. Caroline noted in her diary on July 14 she purchased a Frigidaire refrigerator for $100 from Cody, Wyoming and hoped it would be delivered as promised. However, to promote the aura of wild west living, the refrigerator was kept in the coal bin outside of the kitchen door.

Irises, hollyhocks and cottonwood trees once frame the lawn in front of the main ranch house. Cottonwood trees have a lifespan of 70-120 years before they begin falling down. The original cottonwoods were cut down years ago since they posed a risk to the main house’s structure. New trees have been planted in their place. The irises currently growing are from bulbs donated by the Tippets family. Lockhart sold her 6,034.75 acre ranch to the Issac C. Tippets in 1955 after moving back to Cody in 1952. When the Tippets sold the property to the U.S. National Park Service in 1980, they took iris bulbs with them. The hollyhocks, however, are a work in progress. Although they try to grow every year, the mowing crews at the ranch are very efficient in their work and keep the hollyhocks at bay.

Despite all of the innovations and improvements made to the L/Heart Ranch, one structure remains a true reminder of pioneer recycling. Lockhart’s original homestead cabin, on her 640 acre claim in 1925, was already an early 20th Century mobile home, having moved three times before its final location. Historians surmise the cabin’s initial purpose was as a one-room schoolhouse. The ceiling beam jutting out to the left is featured in multiple photographs of the cabin in other locations. A swing most likely hung from the beam. The wider doorway also indicates it was used as a schoolhouse to accommodate moving wide furniture in and shoulder-to-shoulder shoving children out. Every time a log structure was moved, individual logs were inventoried and notched to show how to reconstruct them at another location. Although Caroline disliked it, this humble proving-up cabin helped her expand her original 640 acres to over 6,000 acres in 27 years time, making her the self-proclaimed Cattle Queen of the Dryhead Country.

Every time I visit Mom and Pop, fresh rhubarb usually finds it way back to the Mid-South with me. This year, we stuffed it into a lined carry-on bag. Luckily the TSA agent in Billings knew what rhubarb was and didn’t ask to unpack it. So with my good stash tucked away safely in the freezer, I’m attempting to grow rhubarb in our backyard garden…a sort of garden spark here.

Rhubarb needs a hard winter freeze to force the roots into dormancy to regenerate from year to year. In the southern regions, it must be planted and grown like a yearly perennial vegetable. One can start the plant from established root cuttings or “crowns”, or from seed. (Both roots and seed can be purchased online.) Having done both this year, growing from crowns is ideal for harvesting. Rhubarb stalks can be pulled and used immediately. Seedlings (like in the picture below) will take up to 3 years to mature. The main difference between northern and southern grown rhubarb is color. North = ruby red stalks; south = light green stalks. The flavor is identical regardless of color.

I don’t know if these Rhubarb Custard Bars would have lived up to Caroline’s high society expectations or not, but they sure do live up to mine (and Son B’s). Regardless of what colored rhubarb you have, pull stalks from the root, trim off the leaves and root end, wash and finely chop. (Discard the leaves in your compost. DO NOT feed them to humans or animals since they are poisonous.)

From here, the recipe is quite simple. Prepare a basic shortbread crust by cutting cold butter into flour and sugar. Press into a 9×13″ baking pan and bake to set. Combine the filling ingredients, including heavy cream, eggs and rhubarb. Pour over the pre-baked crust and bake off. The topping is a smooth combination of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and more heavy cream. With this decadent combination of flaky crust, sweet/tart rhubarb custard and luscious creamy topping, the only rhubarb you’ll encounter is deciding who gets the last piece! Enjoy!

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