"McGregor's Ranch" Estes Park Travelogue by Toughluck

MacGregor Ranch is the last remaining working cattle ranch in Estes Park and one of the few sites operating as both a working ranch and youth education center in the northern Colorado area. It is unique in that its historic collection and structures are original to the 1873 homestead family, and its collection is completely intact.

Horse Corral - Twin Owls in the background

Museum Address/Location

Box 4675 - 180 MacGregor Lane - Estes Park, Colorado 80517
Phone (970) 586-3749 FAX (970) 586-1092

Directions:

Drive north on MacGregor Avenue from downtown Estes Park, (Devil's Gulch Road) to the Ranch entrance on the curve. Enter the main ranch gate; follow the paved road and museum entrance signs.

Inside the Hay barn

Parking and Museum entrance

The parking lot is located to the east of the museum. Your tour begins across the wooden boardwalk at the front entrance of the 1896 house museum

Long's Peak over the Hay Barn

GENERAL PUBLIC - MUSEUM TOURS

Museum is open to the public June - July - August Tuesday through Friday 10 am to 4 pm
Self guided tours of the museum, milkhouse, smokehouse, blacksmith shop and horse-drawn machinery exhibits.

Long's Peak

SCHOOL GROUP AND YOUTH INTERPRETIVE PROGRAMS

Open year-round for Youth Education Activities by appointment only -Please contact our reservations and education coordinator for youth program schedule.

Guided Museum tours, self guided outbuilding tours and interpretive trails, horse-drawn machinery exhibits, interactive agricultural buildings tour, wagon rides, agricultural activities, interactive nature center, nature trails and camping, outdoor education sites.

Homesteader Alexander MacGregor began his claims in the Estes Park area in 1873, being one of the first in the area to lay homestead claims and begin mountain ranching. From 1873 to 1970, three generations of the MacGregor family used the property for a variety of high-mountain ranching functions.

Out buildings

The Ranch is home to 42 buildings - twenty eight of which are listed on the National Historic Register. The historic structures date from 1873 to 1920 and construction ranges from log construction to vernacular wood frame construction, many with native stone foundations. Sidings vary from clapboard to shiplap siding and roofing ranges from tin to sawn wood shingle. Many of the buildings are constructed of timber milled at Alexander's 1876 water powered sawmill.