The Oak Creek Ranch is located 14 miles west of Medicine Lodge and 5 miles south of Lake City in historic Barber County, Kansas. The ranch encompasses more than 2,000 contiguous acres of habitat including Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) grassland, wooded canyons, oak trees, a 38 acre lake, numerous ponds, springs and Oak Creek, which traverses over 4 miles of the ranch. Deer feeders and food plots are utilized in order to maintain the wildlife population. Wildlife on the ranch includes whitetail deer, mule deer, turkeys, quail, pheasant, Canadian geese and usually a swan at the lake.
Clifford R. Hoagland with Horses and Buggy.
Photo courtesy of Kimberly (Hoagland) Fowles
The ranch was established by Clifford Raymond Hoagland, father of Raymond Harold "Bill" Hoagland and grandfather of Ronald L. Hoagland, current owner of the ranch. The Oak Creek Ranch is locally known as the Hoagland Ranch.
The lake is 38 acres when full. The earthen dam is made of 110,000 yards of compacted earth (140,000 loose yards before compaction). The lake water is clear and was about 27.5 feet deep when the lake was created. The lake is stocked with Florida hybrid bass.
There are 5.5 miles of potable water lines on the ranch with 90 lbs. of water pressure at the hay shed.
Lodging is available in Medicine Lodge, which is approximately 14 miles east of the ranch, as well as in Pratt and Coldwater.
The Oak Creek Ranch near Lake City, Barber County, Kansas, 30 May 2005.
None of the Oak Creek Ranch land was settled under the provisions of the Homestead Act. All the land across the southern part of Kansas, extending west from the Missouri border to the 100th meridian (through Englewood and Dodge City) and south of a line running east-west through a point near Dodge City, was set aside as the Osage Diminished Reserve. All of the Oak Creek Ranch was once Osage Diminished Reserve land.
The Oak Creek Ranch is part of the "last American frontier": Kansas was one of the areas in the Great Plains which were passed over for settlement as gold discoveries in California and Alaska caused settlers and prospectors to flood to the west coast from the east coast. In fact, Barber County, Kansas, has many authentic "Wild West" stories about it. Most of the events mentioned in the following histories took place within twenty miles or less from the Oak Creek Ranch:
Recollections of the Past - The Festive Buffalo (A Barber County buffalo hunt that backfired.)
A Christmas in the Wilderness, 1871 - A story by Scott Cummins about a buffalo hunters' Christmas dinner near where Medicine Lodge, Barber County, Kansas, was established a few years later.
* History of the Oak Creek Ranch and the Hoagland family
* The Medicine Lodge Peace Council": A Graphic Description of Famous Peace Council By An Eye Witness, Gov. A. A. Taylor of Tenn. - Barber County Index, September 29, 1927.
* Green Adams Describe Things As He Saw Them In Barber County In The Early 1870's - Barber County Index, October 6, 1927.
Roger Fowles, riding an ATV, herds cattle at the Oak Creek Ranch, 2007.
