"The Carroll Ranch"

"The Carroll Ranch". Stopping point for travelers and cattle drives. For generations the Hamilton Ranch was widely-known as the Carroll Ranch - and it served as a vital link between the Big Hole and Beaverhead valleys. Its location at the base of this mountain pass made the ranch a perfect stopping point for stagecoaches, cattle drives and virtually every other kind of traveler throughout the frontier era and beyond. For years the ranch housed a team of relief horses for the postal delivery service. Even after motor vehicles became common, bad weather could make the roads impassable, forcing travelers to stop here. Family members recall that during the Great Depression no drifter was turned away hungry. , The Carroll Ranch spanned four generation. In 1903, Ann and Frank Carroll traded their homestead in nearby Polaris for a homestead here. They lived in tents with their eight children while constructing the first building, which they completed just in time for the winter of 1904. Over the years, the family acquired other homesteads, eventually expanding the ranch to encompass some 13,000 acres, from the northeast side of the pass all the way to Jackson. The Carroll family sold the ranch lands in the late 1950s, more than 100 years after their great-grandparents emigrated from Ireland. Yet the family name endures - Big Hole Pass is still known locally as Carroll Hill.