Harriman State Park

The ranch came with a condition. For most of the twentieth century this stretch of the Henrys Fork was the Railroad Ranch, a cattle operation and summer retreat owned from 1902 by Union Pacific investors, the Harriman and Guggenheim families among them. E. H. Harriman's wife, Mary, came out with her children and bought a larger share, and John Muir spent ten days here as her guest. Her sons, W. Averell and E. Roland Harriman, eventually meant to give it to the state.

Idaho had no professional park service to run it. The brothers insisted it get one, and their insistence helped bring about the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation in 1965. The deed followed in 1977, free, on terms that the ranch be kept as a state park and a wildlife refuge; the gift agreement reasons that Idaho's wildlife is the exclusive property of no one and has to be passed on. The park opened in 1982.

It is still a refuge first. The park lies inside the Henry's Fork Caldera and within a larger Harriman Wildlife Refuge, and moose, elk and sandhill cranes are ordinary sights. Silver Lake is the most successful trumpeter swan nesting ground in Idaho, and swans winter on the open river. Eight miles of the Henrys Fork run through the park, the flat, clear water that fly-fishers around the world call simply the Ranch.

The ranch buildings still stand, with ranger tours on summer weekends and holidays, and more than twenty miles of trail carry walkers, riders and bicycles, and in winter skiers.