From its beginning on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation of western South Dakota to
its present day location on the historic Powder River of south eastern Montana, the ONO Ranch has continued to improve and promote its horse herd for over 82 years.

The ONO Ranch began in 1922 with the marriage of 16 year old Nora Lafferty and 22 year old Glen L. French. Their home was a ranch on the Cheyenne river Indian reservation south of Isabel, South Dakota. Here they started ranching and broke 4 and 5 year old range horses for $10 per head (or $ 15 if Nora rode them so they were lady broke). The ONO brand was taken from the first two letters in Nora. Glen and Nora had 5 children; Lucille, Evelyn, Glen Jr., Ginnie and John. Later they would have over 50 grand children and great grand children. Glen and Nora would be proud to know that many of them today are proving to be great competitors and horsemen.



Glen L. French was born in Illinois. In 1917 he moved with his parents to a homestead near Dupree, South Dakota in Zeibach county . He was an early day cowboy and rode for some of the old outfits of the time including the Diamond A cattle company, the Suttons and the CBC. The CBC ( Chappel Brothers Cannery) was a horse outfit based back east. They had a large part of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation under lease in the early 1900’s. The CBC ran thousands of horses which were grown out for slaughter and exported to Asian markets. In his 2004 book entitled, “ Pony Tracks: Renegades and Ranching on the Rez, “ author Mel Anderson described Glen French “ as one of the real cowboys he was privileged to know “ he remembered attending a branding at ONO ranch in the 1950’s “ Glen was mounted on his good looking cow pony, shiny as can be with mane



combed, and his coat brushed. It was first class all the way with horse and rider. A nearly new saddle with a pelican horn and a Navajo blanket of Indian design sticking out of all four corners. Glen, himself was a sight to behold with his wool Pendletons stuck inside the tops of his Blucher boots, and a respectable Stetson perched atop his head. The following is an excerpt from Nora’s hand written memoir “ In December of 1923 glen was going down to little bend to work for the Suttons during the winter. He was going to ride across country to the mouth of the Cheyenne river and cross the Missouri on the ice. He started out on a bronc we called Jolly that just wouldn’t stop bucking ( he was nine years old before he was broke to lead). But he thought that fifty some miles over snow and breaks would do the job. It was way below zero the morning he left and Jolly really tried him out when he got off to walk and warm up. The only way Glen could remount was to back Jolly into a very deep washout. He did this and finally got back on very much warmed up. From then on he rode hard as he could and still keep a good horse under him. He made the Diamond A camp about forty miles the first day with only one gate to open very near the camp. The next morning he planned on crossing the Missouri about fifteen miles down the trail. He got to the river and the channel was still open so he couldn’t cross, so he rode up the Cheyenne to Ethan Alexander’s ranch. No one was home so he put Jolly in the corral, feed him hay and went to the house. ( People didn’t lock their houses in those days.) He built a fire but there was no food but he at least had a place to sleep. The next morning he walked down to the Missouri and the channel was thinly iced over. He went back to the corral and got a sixteen foot plank, gave Jolly some more hay and went back to the river. He placed the plank over the channel and crawled across on his belly. Glen then walked about three miles to the Sutton outfit. In a couple of days he was able to ride Jolly across.  I didn’t hear from him for over a month  and  I didn’t  know if he was alive or drowned crossing the river.”

Nora grew up on the family homestead  on White Swan creek south of Lantry,   Zeibach county,  South Dakota.   Nora with her father Edwin Lafferty  and  mother  Sadie (Robinson )   moved to the homestead  in 1916. Recalling the early days, Nora wrote;  “ We had an old Lakota  Indian  named  Charging Fist living about a half mile down the creek.  He was very old in his eighties and crippled from a broken hip; a battle injury received in his youth.  It was very eerie the first time we heard the sound of the drums beating and singing  drifting up the creek late at night but we got very used to it in time.  Charging Fist owned about 300 head of  horses and was very proud of them.  I can still see him in full feather headdress mounted on his tall beautiful paint horse.  He had two teams and three saddle horses that he had trained to stay with an old bell mare.  When he went visiting,  which was very frequently, and be away for a week or so; he would always expect us to know here the bell mare was.   He would ride up to the house and shake his hand as if ringing a bell and ask “womany" tingle ling “wanting to know where the bell mare and horses had gone."



Edwin’s  grand father John Lafferty was born in 1806 in New Hampshire.  John’s father was William Lafferty. He was born in 1770 on the Lafferty family’s New Hampshire farm.   William’s father,  John Lafferty was born in 1750.  John Lafferty  (b 1806)  was a farmer in Wisconsin and later homesteader in Minnesota.  
He had six sons including  Hank  ( 1850 - 1936 ) and
John Lafferty jr. ( 1844 - 1930 ). 



They were born in Wisconsin and Michigan.  In 1861 the family  moved to Minnesota.  John’s wife died about 1856 and his mother in law, Sarah Duncan born 1787 in Georgia,  lived with the family.  The  six boys  were ages 6 to 17 years old when the great Sioux War of 1862  swept  Minnesota.  They  heard of the first attack which was on a party of Union Army recruiters visiting men in the countryside and  were among  the settlers that fled the Indian attacks near Mankato, New Ulm and Hutchinson,  Minnesota.    A short time later, former Minnesota governor  Henry H. Sibley was asked to take command of the state militia to suppress the  Indian attacks. 

John Lafferty  jr. was Edwin’s father.  In 1862 John jr. joined the army on the Union side during the civil war.  He enlisted as a private and was discharged in 1865 as a Corporal. 
After the war John jr. settled on a farm in Wisconsin where Edwin was born in 1879. 



Then in 1890 John Jr filed on a homestead in Dakota Territory.   By this time Hank, Edwin’s uncle,  had been in  Dakota Territory for twelve years.  Hank arrived in 1868 and immediately became a civilian army scout riding under General Henry H.  Sibley.  He was one of only five cowboys riding with the U.S. Calvary in the battle of Painted Woods above what is now Fort Rice, North Dakota.  In 1875 he went to work as a freighter.  Hank ran the freight line between  Fort Pierre and Deadwood,  Dakota Territory.  Deadwood  had just come into existence in 1875 following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills by General George Custer during  his 1874 Black Hills expedition. In those days, freight  goods where brought by steam ship up the Mississippi River from New Orleans and  St Louis  then on up the Missouri River to Fort Pierre.  The freight  was unloaded at Fort Pierre.  



Freighters such as Hank Lafferty would haul the freight overland to other points, such as Deadwood, with a eight horse or mule team and a freight wagon.  While on freighting trip the summer of 1876, Hank was attacked by a small band of Indians returning to the reservation after the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana Territory. They stole his team and left him for dead. Shortly after the attack a trapper, Alexander Larrabee, and his half Lakota daughter, Elizabeth, found Hank and took him home to recover from his wounds. Alexander Larrabee was born in New Orleans in the 1820‘s. He came to Dakota Territory in the 1850’s. Alexander followed a circle trap line from the mouth of the Cheyenne above present day Fort Pierre, South Dakota up the Missouri to Fort Union and mouth of the Yellowstone near present day Williston, North Dakota on south west along the Yellowstone river to the Powder River country near present day Miles City, Montana then on to southeast following the Belle Fourche river of Dakota territory as it flowed back into the Cheyenne. He stayed away from the Black Hills since the hills were closed to all non Indians and a white man would certainly be killed on sight if caught. Each spring he would attend the rendezvous sell his furs and buffalo robes to John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company which was headquartered in St Louis. It was headed by fellow Frenchman and Fort Pierre namesake, Pierre Chouteau Jr. His grandfather, Pierre Laclede Liguest, was the founder of St Louis. Chouteau acquired the position as head of The American Fur Company in 1827. His family fur company, Berthold & Chouteau had become the business partner of John Jacob Astor who owned 90% of The American Fur Company. The result was a organization that controlled most of the fur trade in the upper Missouri River territories. The company divided the area into territories known as “outfits”. In 1837 future Minnesota governor and army General, Henry H. Sibley was a partner in the “Western Outfit” territory under The American Fur Company. By 1864 The American Fur Company ceased operations and Alexander had married Elizabeth’s mother, a Lakota Sioux. Alexander’s children where born from about 1860 to 1871. Hank Lafferty married Elizabeth Larrabee about 1877. About this time Hank, the freighter, and Alexander, the trapper, established the first trading post at what is now Dupree, South Dakota. Hank and Elizabeth had 6 children born in Dakota Territory between 1877 and 1883. When she married Hank, Elizabeth Larrabee had a hand full of horses that originated with her mother’s Lakota family. By 1917 Nora had been given a filly from Lafferty’s band of horses. Nora continued the tradition of gifting fillies by giving a filly or colt to any of her grand children who wanted one.



Evelyn French’s daughters have a deep Lakota connection through their the paternal ancestors. They are the great, great, grand daughters of a 16 year old Lakota Sioux girl who witnessed the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June of 1876. She was mounted on her horse watching the battle when her father’s horse shot out from under him. He quickly remounted on his daughter’s horse to resume the battle leaving her to hide in the tall grass along the river. After the battle she was among the Lakota that fled to Canada with Chief Gall and Sitting Bull. In Canada she married a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. He died when their children were very young. Before he died he made his wife promise to return to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation where her family lived. In the 1890’s she packed up her small children and made the long journey from Canada to South Dakota alone in a buck board wagon.
 






In 1916 Edwin was living near his Uncle Hank and raising horses. Earlier, he had acquired small number of thoroughbred mares which originated with Sadie’s grandfather‘s, Richard T. “R.T.” Robinson, stallion Glencoe jr. at Mitchell. South Dakota. R.T. Robinson (b 1839) was a homesteader in Dakota Territory about 1879. He was later the county Auditor for Davison county at Mitchell, South Dakota in the 1890‘s. He was a private in the Union army during the civil war and discharged May, 31 1865. A friend, Ohioan Samual Moore (b 1842), was the original owner of Glencoe Jr. Moore was a homesteader in Davison County, Dakota Territory. He served in the Union army with Robinson and was discharged at the same time. R.T. Robinson bought Glencoe jr. from Samual Moore sometime after 1890 when Moore left Mitchell, South Dakota to return to Ohio. According to Glencoe Jr.’s certificate of pedigree filed with Davison County on August 25, 1890, the son of Glencoe stood for a service fee of $ 10.00. Richard Chamberlains’ article, “ Born Under a Bad Sign”, in the May 2002 issue of the American Quarter Horse Journal states “ Glencoe was one of the leading sires of thoroughbred running horses in the United States when he died in 1872. At the time of his death Glencoe was the senior sire at General W.B. Harding’s Belle Meade Stud at Nashville, Tennessee. “ When Nora and Glen were married, Nora owned Edwin’s thoroughbred mares descended from R.T.’s stallion Glencoe Jr. In an article in a December 1896 issue of “ The Mitchell Republican “ R.T. Robinson discussed post civil war thoroughbred racing , “ citing that horse racing again gaining popularity “ . Thoroughbred racing had ceased to exist during the civil war years. He went on to note that “ in the year 1896, 493 thoroughbreds had sold nationally for an average of $ 782.00 per head.” Edwin’s Glen Coe Jr thoroughbred mares would be the start of Glen and Nora’s ONO ranch broodmare band. ONO Johnie Stardust a current ONO mare is a descendant of these mares.

In the 1920’s Glen and Nora broodmare band consisted of the Lakota mares and thoroughbreds. Their stallions were mostly U.S. Calvary remount horses originating from the U.S. Calvary Remount Program administered at Fort Keogh near Miles City, Montana. With the remount stallions and band of Lakota/thoroughbred mares they raised ranch horses and a string of relay race horses. The ranch grew when Glen and Nora acquired a large grass lease on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. With the increase in the size of ONO ranch they were able to run nearly a thousand cattle. The cattle where run year round on grass and supplemented with cake in the winter. Every winter day Glen and Sullivan Larrabee, Nora’s cousin, would pack cake on pack horses and ride through miles and miles of rough river breaks caking cattle. In the summer they would cut hay with a horse drawn sickle bar mower then stack and haul it with a large wagon and a team of horses. Sullivan Larrabee, grandson of Alexander Larrabee, was born in 1907. He lived and worked on the ONO ranch for many years.



In 1922 the West River Country was unfenced and still open range. There were few good roads so transportation by saddle horse or horse and wagon was more common than automobile. The first year on the ranch, a neighbor stopped by to tell Glen that he had seen two riders trailing a large band of horses including some ONO mares south. Horse thieves weren’t uncommon on the reservation in those days and he was determined to get the horses back by gunpoint if necessary. Glen trailed the riders for over 150 miles on horse back . When he caught up to them at an area near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Glen discovered that he knew the two riders. Fortunately no shots were fired. After discussion they parted on good terms, deciding it was an honest mistake. Glen cut out his horses and trailed them home. He remained friends with the men for the rest of their lives.

After the stock market crash of 1929, Glen received advice from his banker that resulted in a life long mistrust of banks. Glen had decided to sell his calves that fall because prices where falling and he had no hay. His banker told him not to worry that prices would be higher in the spring and urged him to borrow money to buy cake and winter the calves. By the spring of 1930 cattle where practically worthless and the drought years of the dirty thirties were beginning. Since there was no grass that fall, Glen and Nora decided to send their cow herd in eastern South Dakota where there had been a good corn crop. The herd was trailed 20 miles north of the ranch to railroad stock yards at Firesteel, South Dakota. Here the cows were loaded on train cars for the trip to the eastern South Dakota farms. The arrangement was that Glen and Nora gave the farmers two cows for each cow wintered therefore getting about a third of the herd back in the spring. In her memoirs Nora wrote “ Things were going pretty well for us until the summer 1929 and we were hit by a huge prairie fire. We were in the center. We lost about 300 tons of beautiful wheat grass hay, all our haying equipment and nearly all of our range. We were lucky to get away with our lives as it burned right up to the corrals and house. Luckily we were working cattle that day and had them and the horses in the corrals. We soaked the roof on the house and other buildings to keep them from burning. We nearly smothered in the smoke and the children were terrified. The fire started about 2 p.m. about nine miles north and burned out two days later when it hit the Cheyenne river. At midnight the first day, the first fire fighters reached us. They thought that we would all be dead. Glen , Sullivan Larrabee and our hired hands were on the fire lines for two days and two nights. I fixed coffee and food for the crews and hauled water to them even though I was very pregnant and a month away from delivery. I will never forget sight of that fire at sun down with hundred foot tall flames coming off the plains, down into the breaks to the creek and the sound of screaming children, bawling cattle and neighing horses.“





In the mid thirties sheep and wool prices were good so Glen and Nora bought a band of sheep. For the remainder of the 1930s raised sheep along with their herd of cattle and broodmare band until according to Glen, “ The sheep got me out of debt.” In the 1940s and into 1950s the ONO ranch pastured several thousand yearling steers that were shipped up from various ranches in Texas. The yearlings arrived by train at Firesteel, South Dakota and where trailed to pasture on the ONO ranch.



Western South Dakota experienced one of the worst blizzards in its history in December of 1949. The fall weather had been summer like with temperatures in the 70’s and the cattle where still on summer pasture. When the blizzard hit the temperature dropped from 70 degrees to minus 30 degrees below zero over night. It snowed for three days leaving snow drifts as much as 7 feet deep. Nora and Glen were alone at the ranch during the storm. Glen had just been released from the hospital having had surgery. Glen Jr. was visiting his fiancee, Marion Jenson, at Rapid City, South Dakota. John and Ginnie where in town for school. After the weather cleared John hired a local pilot to fly him to the ranch because the roads where impassable. When John got to the ranch he learned that five hundred head of yearling steers had drifted with the storm. Glen asked the pilot to fly the ranch and find the herd. After which Glen, Nora and John saddled up to gather the cattle. When they got to the yearlings, some had been buried by snow drifts but steam from the cattle’s breath had melted air holes in the snow. When they found an air hole they would dig the steer out of the drift. The three dug out all the steers they could find but the snow that covered distance back to the ranch headquarters and feed ground was too deep for the cattle to pass through. They rode back, gathered the broodmare band and trailed them out to the cattle. By driving the horses to the cattle they were able break trail in the snow to allow the cattle to move to the feed ground.

ONO horses helped rescue cattle during the blizzard of 1949, but that wasn’t the only natural disaster through which they helped. Fast forward to ONO ranch the summer of 1997. A large prairie fire had been burning off in the distance for nearly a week. At 2 a.m. in the morning a call was received by the county sheriff’s office with the warning that the fire had changed direction and was moving towards the ranch. John , son Pat, daughter Gina Asay and her husband Bill with their sons Matt and Ryan, mounted up in the black of night to find Pat French’s cattle. They gathered the pasture moving 200 cows and calves away from the on coming ten mile wide fire. Fortunately, the fire changed direction again and narrowly missed the pasture.

In 1941 Nora went to San Francisco for a visit with her mother, Sadie. Sadie was an admirer of Arabian horses so she and Nora visited a breeder Sadie knew in Northern California near Marysville. Nora bought an Arabian stallion from the breeder. However World War II broke out before Glen could go to California and take delivery of the horse. Rubber tires was rationed during war time so they were unable buy new tires to make the trip. Nora’s step father resold the stallion in California and the idea of raising Arabian horses faded away. Shortly after the war a Texas oil man was visiting the ranch looking for an oil lease. While Glen as driving him around the ranch they passed by the broodmare band. The oil man asked Glen where he got his nice band of Quarter Horse mares. Unknowingly Glen and Nora had been raising horses out of their Lakota/thoroughbred mares and U.S. Calvary remount stallions that where “Quarter Type “ horses. Nora joined the American Quarter Horse Association in about 1948 and began to register their mares in the AQHA appendix registry. The names of U.S. Calvary remount stallions used in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s include Vino, Four Aces, Johnie and Stardust. Others are unknown or forgotten. However according to AQHA records the names Johnie, foaled in 1929, and Stardust , foaled in 1937; the two last ONO remount stallions, still appear in ONO horse pedigrees today.

Johnie was run on the reservation with his band of mares in the 1930‘s. During that time most of the reservation was unfenced and there where wild horses on the range as well. One day in the summer of 1934, Johnie brought his mares near the ranch buildings in an area below the barn to water. A Percheron range stallion, also with a band of mares, came in at the same time. A fight began when Johnie charged the much bigger Percheron. Glen figured that it would be a knock down drag out battle because the studs had been taunting each other all summer. All he could do was watch the wreck. Glen went to the house to get Nora’s Brownie Kodak camera and snapped a series of photos of the fight.



The fight ended when the Percheron opened his huge mouth and grabbed Johnie on his back over the kidneys. Then he lifted Johnie up in the air and dropped him to the ground. Johnie was dazed and bloodied but he was able to stumble to his feet. He gathered some of his mares and drove them several miles away leaving the Percheron to the water. Johnie fully recovered from his injuries but the Percheron was later shot and killed by a neighbor while he was raiding a band of mares.

Fifty five years later in 1989, Dayton Wyoming artist Don Marquiss used the Glen’s photos of Johnie’s fight as a model for a bronze statue he created entitled “ Mustang Fury ”. Glen’s grand daughter, Gina French Asay, owns the artists proof of that bronze.