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Fallon Ranch

Cattle ranch near Twin Bluffs, Nebraska in the 1875.[1]

Originally owned by Mart Fallon, stocked with cattle culled mostly from strays cut from other brands' cattle drives passing within its range.[1]

With money stolen from payrolls from ranches he had worked for, Fallon and his sons, Wes and Rip, homesteaded on land in Nebraska's panhandle just east of Twin Bluffs in the years following the Civil War. Despite the questionable origins of the ranch. it was one of the first established in the region.[2]

By 1871, the Fallons had raised a modest herd, but slowly increased their stock by cutting strays out of other cattle drives passing within their range.[2] By 1875, the herd amounted to over a thousand head.[1]

In July of 1875, Wes Fallon rode to the Fallon ranch house from the Packsaddle Station with the combination to his father's safe to get $15,000 to pay Bret Maverick for a map to the Harris Mine in the Black Hills.[1]

After Fallon's arrest and conviction for his involvement in the murder of Sam Harris and Matson, his son Rip took over the operation of the ranch and, by running it honestly, turned it into one of the first successful ranches in the Nebraska panhandle.[2]

See: Stage West

Rip Fallon rides along the Tomah Stage Road, east of Beaver Creek, Nebraska, near the Fallon Ranch, 1875.[1]