P a g e 2 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r know-how needed to cowboy and ranch in the West. By fifteen, Mac was working the Judith Basin cattle roundups and is seen seated with Charles M. Russell and other cowboys in an 1884 photo taken at Utica, Montana. A native of Cedar County, Missouri, Annie Ator was born in 1877, to George Newton and Virginia Alice (McMillan) Ator. At a young age, Annie and her family left Missouri and migrated to Montana by overland wagon. The Ator family settled in Great Falls, Montana then later moved to Stanford. It was while Annie was working as a cook and housekeeper on the ranch of Mac’s cousin, George Bain, that she and Mac met and later married in December of 1896. Their oldest child, Clem, was born in Stanford in 1897. Mac first saw the plains of northeastern Montana in 1892, while trailing sheep from the Judith Basin to a railhead in western North Dakota. He was impressed with the vast areas of rolling hills covered with rich grasses, natural windbreaks, streams, and free flowing springs. When it became apparent that the area he had been so “taken by” in his youth would soon become available for homesteading, Mac and two of his brothers-in-law, left Stanford and headed east to stake out their ranch sites. Upon Mac’s return to Stanford, he, Annie, and her family, began planning for the move. The McCoys and Ators spent the winter of 1898-99 at Fort Benton, Montana, waiting for the arrival of steam ships bringing in the supplies that would be needed for the trip east, and the building of their new homes. With the coming of spring, the two families headed east by wagon. The Ators settled south of Plentywood, along what became known as Ator Creek and the McCoys to the north. A few months after arriving, Annie gave birth to the McCoy’s second child, Martha. The small family began the hard work of making a home on the banks of what is now called McCoy Creek. The only tree standing within sight, they aptly dubbed, “The Lone Tree” and it became the family’s generational marker as the place where the McCoy Ranch began. Living in a small log cabin, Mac, Annie, Clem and Martha had miles of wide open and unfenced country to themselves. Mac saw the land as a place ready-made for raising sheep, and within four years the McCoy’s were grazing over 2,500 head. As the community began to expand with the coming of more settlers, so did the entrepreneurial and community-minded spirit of the McCoy’s. Annie was often sought out by neighbors for medical care. She attended the births of many of the children born in the early days of settlement. Her obituary noted, “There was hardly a pioneer in the entire section to whose family she had not ministered”. By 1905, Annie’s work included general ranch chores, cooking for the many ranch hands who were employed throughout the year, and tending to a growing family that now included Clarence, Maggie and Jimmy. Annie’s interest in civic responsibility led her to take advantage of Montana’s early recognition of a woman’s right to vote, as her name can be found on the 1916 Sheridan County list of registered voters. Mac and Annie faced not only the hardships that naturally came with the building of a successful ranch in
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