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Bar-O ranch visit near Montello Nevada
September 4, 2001
Alvin Carl McCuistion, Marilyn and their son Mark visited the Bar-O ranch near Montello Nevada. This is where most of the Alvin James McCuistion family grew up. We were warmly received by the current owner, Jack Christiansen.
Jack has two children, both married and living on ranch:
Mark & Shelly
Mike & Dessy
Jack saved his water rights from an interloper, using the Autobiography of Alvin James McCuistion. His copy was getting faded around the edges; Mark just happened to have a clear copy! Jack was happy to get a better copy. He invited us to wander the ranch and gave us permission to enter the old homestead.
The Russian Olive trees along the entrance road to the farm are still strong. They were planted around 1943 as a windbreak. They were very small, about 1 foot high, when the boys who were at the farm at the time planted them. Probably Ollie, Lee, Dave and Al. At the entrance is a sign that still proclaims The Bar-O Ranch.
The icehouse stands next to the pond. The pond is a built-up dirt bank that holds captured from the McCuistion spring that came down from the mountain. They would cut ice blocks out of the pond and store them in the icehouse, insulating them with sawdust. The pond has willow-type trees growing in the banks. These trees keep the water from bursting the banks as it did a few times in the beginning
The willow trees surrounding the home are thick, old and near the end of their life, but still have some growth. The milk house still stands. There is a stovepipe chimney. It's currently used as a storage shed.
The entrance to the house, a small covered porch, has a new woodbox and freezer where the woodbin and icebox used to be. You enter into the kitchen. The shelves and hat/coat bar are still there. The pantry off the kitchen was enlarged by removing the bathroom on the other side of the wall.
Continuing through the kitchen brings you to the dining room with the living room on the right. There's a new heating stove that replaced the bot-bellied stove, and a ceiling vent that provided the only heat the upstairs enjoyed. There are two doors to the outside that were rarely use.
At the end of the hall off the kitchen are two rooms; Olie's on the right, and the master bedroom on the left. AJ's bedroom is still in great shape, having recently been painted. The room has tall windows on two walls.
Upstairs are three bedrooms. The first and second on the right are quite small. The boys slept in the first and the girls in the second. It's amazing that they could have placed a bed in those rooms. The door entrance is barely 6 feet high. The third upstairs bedroom was for married couples and special visiting guests. There is a door to the outside, and historically there was a porch that went the entire length of the house. A covered bed on the porch was often used by the children to sleep outside. The porch is long gone.
Right at the top of the stairs is an access to the unfinished half height attic. There is nothing left in it but old mudwasp nests. Bertha McCuistion removed whatever had been there years before so the items wouldn't be lost with the transfer of ownership.
In Montello, there a new Post Office, right next to the home Del & Florence lived in. The lady invited us in, and it turns out she lived in the McCuistion Bar-O home when she first moved to the area. The cellar was gone, but little tie house is still there where Ted stayed. There was no insulation in the house, and it used to get so cold.
The McCuistion section of the cemetery was still in fine shape. There are six graves.
George Robinson: 1887 - 1929. There is a BRT: Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen medallion next to the gravestone. His wife Marybelle was the daughter from AJ McCuistion and M Delamare.
William's grave: Born May 18, 1887 died Nov 7 1921. Son of AJ McCuistion and M Delamare. He was shot.
Jimme was probably the firstborn of James Faye McCuistion and Matilda Osterhaus.
Helen Ann: daughter of Del & Florence.
Baby Oliver: Maida Ramola's son. Homemade type gravestone
Many graves in the cemetery were marked with simple crosses. Bertha indicated that a troop train came through in 1918, during the influenza pandemic. They just offloaded the dead and buried them here.
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