Qualla: Crail Ranch Buildings https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:04 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/c/8/0/c/crail-ranch-buildings-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Crail Ranch Buildings https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings Crail Ranch Buildings: Introduction https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings/ Photo credit Crail family about 1910, CC BY 4.0. Frank Crail was nearly 60 years old and had just lost his job as a district court clerk when he paid $150 for 160 acres of meadowland in the Gallatin Basin. It was December 1901, and most men his age would have been content with defeat. Instead, Crail hauled his family up a rough logging road along the Gallatin River the following spring and moved into an abandoned cabin to start over. The two rustic buildings that survive from his homestead now sit amid the manicured fairways of Big Sky Resort, their weathered logs a reminder that this playground for the wealthy was once just another hard-won claim on the Montana frontier.

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Image: Crail family about 1910 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/8/0/c/crail-ranch-buildings-wp/c80c-crail-ranch-buildings-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Crail Ranch Buildings: From Indiana to the High Country https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings/ Photo credit Crail family about 1910, CC BY 4.0. Frank Crail's path to that meadow wound through three decades of western adventure. Born in Tipton County, Indiana in 1842, he joined a wagon train to Montana Territory at age 22, seeking fortune in the gold fields. By 1868 he was working a quartz mine near Helena, but he found m...

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Image: Crail family about 1910 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/8/0/c/crail-ranch-buildings-wp/c80c-crail-ranch-buildings-from-indiana-to-the-high-country.mp3 0:06 2 full Crail Ranch Buildings: The Wheat That Won Prizes https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings/ Photo credit Crail family about 1910, CC BY 4.0. The Crail family proved up their original claim and eventually expanded to 960 contiguous acres. By 1910, they had built a two-story, four-room cabin and filled the property with barns and outbuildings. They raised horses, cattle, and sheep, but Frank Crail was also an experiment...

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Image: Crail family about 1910 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/8/0/c/crail-ranch-buildings-wp/c80c-crail-ranch-buildings-the-wheat-that-won-prizes.mp3 0:06 3 full Crail Ranch Buildings: Three Generations, Then Gone https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings/ Photo credit Crail family about 1910, CC BY 4.0. Sallie Crail died in 1914 at age 50. Frank's son Eugene went off to World War I in 1918, and his daughter Lillian left for nursing school in Chicago, never to return to ranch life. Frank Crail died on his land in 1924, and his son Emmett kept the operation running through the Dep...

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Image: Crail family about 1910 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/8/0/c/crail-ranch-buildings-wp/c80c-crail-ranch-buildings-three-generations-then-gone.mp3 0:06 4 full Crail Ranch Buildings: From Bunkhouses to Museum https://qualla.com/crail-ranch-buildings/ Photo credit Crail family about 1910, CC BY 4.0. Chet Huntley, the retired NBC newsman and Montana native, arrived in 1968 with investors and a vision for a ski resort. The Crail Ranch was among the first parcels purchased. The consortium demolished many buildings, converted the hay fields into a golf course, and used the survi...

Read more: Crail Ranch Buildings on Qualla

Image: Crail family about 1910 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/8/0/c/crail-ranch-buildings-wp/c80c-crail-ranch-buildings-from-bunkhouses-to-museum.mp3 0:06 5 full