ith a new pocketknife in his possession, many a youngboy has been tempted to leave his mark on barn wood.Even not-so-young boys have discreetly carved theirinitials on a beam or board somewhere within thedark recesses of a barn. Or, their marks may be big and

bold, etched on a stall partition or emblazoned on the tack room door.Carving your name on barn wood is sort of a rite of passage. It’s been

happening for just about as long as boys with blades have had access tobarns. If they’ll admit it, a few girls have participated too. But you don’tsee this ‘art form’ quite as much anymore. Maybe youngsters are differ-ent, or maybe it’s the way they build barns now with all that steel. Notmuch wood available for creative carving.

The old horse barn at Pawnee Springs Ranch is the right kind. Stillstanding straight, its interior bears the marks of kids reared on the ranchnear Maxwell, Nebraska. They don’t build barns like that one anymore -framed in fir, with board-and-batten siding. Its classic design – stalls withmangers on either side of a center alley and a cavernous hay mow over-head - accommodated draft teams and saddle horses. Such barns havebeen favorite places for generations of ranch kids. This one has outlivedmost of the people whose initials decorate its interior.

Pawnee Springs Ranch manager Steve Boeshart isn’t sure how old thebarn is. He’s got a copy of a ranch description published in 1949, justprior to a change of ownership. Accompanying photographs show thehorse barn and a number of other structures that are still standing andstill in use today.

“That barn was pretty old then,” grins Boeshart. “The headquarters real-ly hasn’t changed much from the way it looked 60 years ago. But some ofthese buildings have been here a lot longer than that.”

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Boeshart has been manager for 17years, the same length of time thatPawnee Springs Ranch has been ownedby Gottsch Cattle Company. There’s aname familiar to many beef industryfolk, because of the Gottsch family’slarge cattle feeding operations inJuniata, Red Cloud and North Platte,Nebraska. Many of the cattle finishedat those locations are first grazed andgrown on Gottsch-owned ranches inKansas, Missouri, Louisiana, and Texas

as well as Nebraska. Pawnee SpringsRanch, however, is the only one thatalso runs mother cows. It’s also wherethe saddle horses used on all Gottschoperations are bred, raised and trained.Boeshart believes Pawnee Springs

was special to Robert (Bob) Gottsch,Jr., who headed Gottsch CattleCompany until his untimely deathearlier this year. That didn’t mean theranch wasn’t expected to pay its way.“Each of the Gottsch-owned feed-

yards and ranches operates as an indi-vidual business. Each one has to work,from a business standpoint,” explainsBoeshart. “Pawnee Springs is a workingranch. We apply careful cost account-ing, tracking all of our costs, rightdown to the penny. Bob believed thepennies were important and I agree.”

Long InterestIng story

Bob Gottsch and Steve Boeshart alsoshared an appreciation for PawneeSprings Ranch property’s long andinteresting story. According to histori-cal accounts, the ranch was foundedsome 130 years ago by Nebraska cattleindustry pioneer Morrell Case Keith. Itwas part of the estate inherited byCase’s grandson, Keith Neville, arancher, banker and one-term gover-nor of Nebraska during World War I.Omaha grain trader, newspaper pub-lisher and politician Nelson Updikeacquired the ranch during the mid-1920s. In 1949, Updike’s heirs sold the35,500-acre ranch to Peter Kiewit, Sr.,who headed an Omaha-based con-struction and mining company.Under Kiewit ownership for over

four decades, Pawnee Springs Ranchholdings gradually expanded toinclude more than 80,000 acres spreadacross a four-county area. The intro-

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The big ol’ barn has been many a

kid’s hideout over the years. No telling

how many names are carved on the

walls, stanchions and supports.

On most days, a pickup truck serves as ‘the office’ for ranch manager Steve Boeshart and his

shadow, Custer.

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TROY SMITH

NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2011 | WORKING RANCH | 81

on the ranch, then finished in one ofthe Gottsch feedyards. They’re all age-and source-verified, through our ownUSDA-certified program.”Total cow numbers are divided rough-

ly in half, between the two ranch units,as are the two thousand purchased year-lings – all spayed heifers - grazed eachsummer. Ideally, yearlings will come offgrass weighing close to 900 poundseach, taking maximum advantage ofrelatively cheap pasture gain.“We can pull yearlings off pasture

early and put them into our own lots, ifnecessary,” states Boeshart. “The abilityto do that lends flexibility to our rangemanagement. To save more grass forthe cows, we can pen the yearlings andfeed them a little while, before sendingthem on to one of the finishing yards.”

Into the feedyard

The pens Boeshart refers to are thesame South Unit facilities used tobackground home-raised calves, plusapproximately 13,000 purchasedcalves brought in each fall and winter.The 500- to 550-pound heifers startcoming in October, usually filling the9000-head capacity pen space by earlyDecember. As groups of 750-poundersare shipped to finishing yards, startingin January, more calves are broughtin, keeping the facility’s large, well-protected pens occupied until May.

Purchased feedstuffs include wetdistiller’s grains and liquid proteinsupplement. In addition to home-grown meadow hay, the ranch hasseven pivot-irrigated fields producingalfalfa and corn for silage and grain.Boeshart says the ranch’s varied feedresources lend both diversity andresilience to the operation and pro-vide multiple revenue streams.“The outside cattle that come here

aren’t owned by Pawnee SpringsRanch. Typically, Bob and his brothers,Brett and Bill Gottsch, have bought the

calves and maintained ownership.They pay the ranch for its feed and ourtender loving care,” explains Boeshart.“With all that’s going on here, we staypretty busy. Still, with modern equip-ment and an eight-man crew workingboth units, we do what it might havetaken 20 men to do in the old days.”When it comes to dealing with

employees, Boeshart says he has triedto follow the example set by BobGottsch. His leadership style inspiredrespect and loyalty among membersof the work force.

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duction of center-pivot irrigationadded more diversity to the operationand Pawnee Springs employed a size-able number of both married and sin-gle hands. Boeshart’s name was addedto the payroll in 1979.“I hired on as a cowboy, for $600 a

month, a house, beef and all the hoursI wanted to put in,” tells Boeshart.“That same year, Pete Sr. died andownership of the ranch passed to theKiewit Foundation.”In 1984, Foundation trustees decided

to exit the ranching business; they soldthe cattle and equipment and leasedout the land. For about a decade, muchof it was leased by Gottsch CattleCompany and another Nebraska-based, family-run outfit; TimmermanLand and Cattle Company.“I worked elsewhere for a couple of

years, and eventually at Gottsch’sJuniata feedyard. In ’94, after purchas-ing about half of the total PawneeSprings acreage, Bob asked me to goback to the ranch as manager,” tellsBoeshart. “A remote property calledTin Camp was resold, leaving theSouth Unit and the North Unit.Together, they made up the original35,500 acres of Pawnee SpringsRanch. More recently, we’ve leasedadditional ground from neighboringranchers that have retired but still liveon their places.”

The South Unit fronts the PlatteRiver and extends northward into theSandhills. The headquarters site islocated near the river, with the ranch’sirrigated fields and most productivewet meadows nearby. Situated a fewmiles beyond this property’s northeastcorner is the North Unit, comprised ofSandhills range. While under lease,both units’ resources fueled a stockeroperation. However, Boeshart saysBob Gottsch’s vision for PawneeSprings included a cow-calf enterprise.Initiated in 1995, with 250 first-calfheifers, the herd has grown to about1,900 spring-calving females. They’reall black-hided, but the scattering ofwhite faces is evidence of the nucleusherd’s Hereford origin.“We’ve always used mostly Angus

bulls, but we do breed about 500 ofthe older cows to Charolais bulls, as aterminal cross,” explains Boeshart.“We shoot for a 60-day calving sea-son, starting about March 20, so thecalves are pretty tightly grouped.Weaned in mid-October, they’llweigh 500 to 550 pounds.“That’s heavy enough,” he adds. “If

they weighed 650, the calves wouldhave to go straight to a feedyard. Weprefer to background them a whilefirst, up to 750 pounds or so. Exceptfor heifers chosen as replacements, allhome-raised calves are backgrounded

1/3Vert.

Most of the cattle on the Pawnee Springs Ranch

are black-hided, but you can still see the original

Hereford influence in a few white brockle-faces.

SHALEE PAXTON

Ranch owner Bob Gottsch and manager Steve Boeshart started the Pawnee Springs Quarter

Horse breeding program to raise good working horses for the Gottsch ranch and feedyards.

They currently run 28 broodmares, all of whom have been rode to work.

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“Bob felt the respect hadto be mutual,” saysBoeshart. “He believed inhelping a man find hisniche, giving him respon-sibility and then lettinghim do his job. I’ve triedto do it his way, includingmaking regular perform-ance evaluations andadjusting pay according tothe ability and attitude aman brings to work.”Employment records

suggest it’s a successful sys-tem. Unlike many ranchoperations that struggle tofind and keep capable help,Pawnee Springs employeestend to stay put.“Tom Woracek and Mike Dailey have

been here the longest, for 17 years ormore, and Eldon Chestnutt has beenwith the company for 11 years. It’s beensix years apiece for Bill Warren andGreg Eshleman, and two years for bothHeath Maddox and Trenton Heath,”adds Boeshart. “Calder Russman is thepup – here for just six months - but wehave high hopes for him too.”Russman is learning the ropes from

Eshleman who devotes much of histime to the Pawnee Springs horse enter-prise. The resident trainer, Eshleman,also takes a few ranch-raised horses toplaces like the Central States Fair inRapid City, South Dakota, enteringthem in working cowhorse competi-tions. He’s in charge of the effort to

draw more attention to Pawnee Springs’Quarter Horses.“Bob and I started this breeding pro-

gram to raise good working horses, butwe didn’t do it with the idea of sellingthem,” says Boeshart. “The otherGottsch ranches and the feedyards alluse saddle horses. We established thislittle program to produce horses fortheir use as well as our own.”A horse facility has been added, with

outdoor arena and a barn with severalstalls and room to ride indoors. It’s amodern, steel structure with less woodfor carving than the old horse barn,but it shows how the horse program isa serious endeavor. Currently, PawneeSprings runs 28 broodmares, all ofwhich saw plenty of wet saddle blan-kets before joining the band. The stal-

lions used have alsoseen long days undersaddle. Conformationand disposition areimportant traits, andthey absolutely must bethe kind that you canmake a circle off of.“The foals we raise

are started here andsent, as two- and three-year-olds, to the otherstocker operationswhere they have pas-tures to cover on horse-back. Eventually, theygo on to the feedyards,”Boeshart explains. “Butnow we’re trying to

merchandise a few horses at privatetreaty. That’s why Greg has startedshowing a few of them – to get themout there in front of the public.”Whether he’s talking about the

horses or one of the cattle enterprises,Boeshart makes frequent references toBob Gottsch. He was Boeshart’s boss,but also a close friend and mentor.“Bob brought me back to this ranch

and made me part of it. Together, weestablished goals and made plans.One goal was to build the cow herd to2,000 head – all home-raised. I figurewe’re about two years away fromreaching that goal,” states Boeshart.“Bob really left his mark on the cattleindustry and this ranch. He had avision for Pawnee Springs which wewill continue to pursue.”

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The majority of Pawnee Springs Ranch hay

comes from their own subirrigated meadows.

Resident horse trainer, Greg Eshleman, gets the young ‘uns started and

underway so they can go to the other Gottsch facilities and be put to work. He

also enters a few ranch-raised horses in local and state working cowhorse

competitions.

TROY SMITH

TROY SMITH