Wheels of time: Stagecoach tours provide peak into history at Wrangler Springs Ranch

Before the summer heat can fill the barn Dale Mee and Doug Howser are hooking the horses up to the stagecoach their mustaches waxed to hooked points “for historical accuracy, and a little drama.”

Bigfork Stagecoach Rides and Rentals is new to Wrangler Springs Ranch this summer, but stagecoaches have been running in the Flathead Valley since its early years of settlement. 

The coach Mee and Howser pull a tall, rambling yellow and red wagon, which is called a Yellowstone stagecoach. It used to run through Yosemite National Park. Similar coaches would have run through Glacier National Park.  

The job is a dream for Mee and his wife Pat Mee, who met working dude ranches and have since found their passion in stagecoaches. The couple has run coaches for 18 years based in Arizona as Gilmer & Salisbury Stagecoach. They saw an ad from the Dude Ranch Association by Doug Averill, who leases Wrangler Springs and runs Paladin Conservancy, a Western education nonprofit. They packed up their pair of mules, two Percheron-Morgan crosses, three mini horses and a spare and brought the whole caravan up to Bigfork this summer, mud wagon and fifth wheel in tow. Howser is helping in his retirement after years working with pack stock out West his whole career.  

“Right over here, we’re going to pass a settler’s cabin, a log cabin built in 1886,” Howser says as the stagecoach bounces along the gravel road at the ranch.  

The Elliott family, the original white settlers at Wrangler Springs, were said to have encroached on the Native Americans that used the water before them. Although their story is unconfirmed, it is said that when the man of the house left to pick up lumber at Flathead Lake, his wife and three children were killed. After that, the story gets even more convoluted, as it is undetermined how the Native Americans were driven from the land.  

The old red barn, built in 1905, is now home to 50 stagecoaches collected by Averill. The coach winds past the bubbling cool Wrangler Spring.  

“See our little outhouse over here? That’s the original homestead outhouse, it’s a two-holer so Ma and Pa can sit side by side, but lower down there’s a child’s seat also,” Howser says with a smile.  

The Bigfork Stagecoach crew is working to fix up some of the old stagecoaches at Wrangler Springs. They also offer driving lessons for all ages.  

“The problem is there’s a lack of people that can do it,” Pat Mee said. “The old guys are dying and nobody wants to learn.” 

“We’re trying to keep that tradition alive in our own little way,” Howser said.  

The coaches will continue through September, until the Mees are back in Arizona on Oct.1. But they plan on being back next summer and hope to add lunch rides and expand their route into the surrounding forest.  

“We’re hoping to be here at least the next 10 years,” Dale Mee said.  

Bigfork Stagecoach Rides and Rentals is available by reservation at https://arizonahorsecarriage.com/book-now-stagecoach.   

    Dale and Pat Mee and Doug Howser of Bigfork Stagecoach Rides and Rentals at Wrangler Springs Friday, July 19. (Avery Howe/Bigfork Eagle)
  

    Dale Mee and Doug Howser on a stagecoach ride at Wrangler Springs Friday, July 19. (Avery Howe/Bigfork Eagle)
  

    Doug Howser and Dale Mee ready their mule team for a ride Friday, July 19. (Avery Howe/Bigfork Eagle)
  

    Reed Darrow, owner of Wrangler Springs Ranch, and his grandsons board a stagecoach for a ride around the grounds Friday, July 19. (Avery Howe/Bigfork Eagle)