The Great Fire at Fryberger Ranch

It was in the evening, sometime near the end of January or beginning of February of the year 1963, when the great fire at Fryberger Ranch took place. It was an event to be remembered by residents of Dayton, Sheridan and all Soldier Creek Road. Harvey and Marilyn Fryberger were the co-owners of the Ranch at the time of the fire. The other co-owner was a married man named Frank who had four kids. At the time Harvey and Marilyn had two kids with the third one only a few weeks away from being born. The fire took place on one of the coldest evenings I’ve ever heard about. It was close to –40 degrees Fahrenheit outside when the fire started. Accordingly the fire was started in the stovepipes a little while before dinner. When Frank saw the fire he called Harvey, said ‘I think we have a fire’, and proceeded to put out the fire. Harvey bundled up and headed over to what is referred to as the ‘old house’. As Harvey was walking he saw a fire coming up through the roof of the house. When he arrived at the old house, Frank and family were sitting around eating dinner thinking that they had gotten the fire out. Harvey informed them that the fire was most definitely not out and he and the family then decided the house was lost and started getting everything out that they could. Meanwhile Marilyn Fryberger had called the Sheridan and Dayton fire departments along with as many neighbors as she could to come and help put out the fire. Marilyn probably missed a few neighbors because the phone line burned out because of the fire, being as the lines where shared back then. Harvey was helping Frank and his family move everything out through the door. This was very slow going and Harvey realized that they could move things out faster through the big picture window. He had a slight mental battle with himself as a person doesn’t just break out windows, but as the house was lost already, it would be okay. Harvey did break the window and everything started to get taken out much faster. Because they were in a rush to get things out, a couple things were left behind. Harvey remembers perfectly two of the things which were left behind. The first was a large bag of dirty laundry. The fire happened on a Friday, and as Saturday was washing day, thus all the dirty laundry was gathered into a bag to be washed. Apparently no one paid much attention to this bag and hence it was left behind. The second was an old broken china cup. Harvey had been gathering things out of the kitchen and he remembers very distinctly seeing the cup, assessing it as old, broken and useless and purposely pushing it aside. That would have been fine except that that old broken china cup was where Frank’s wife kept her very nice diamond wedding ring. Harvey reports that for days after him and Frank’s family dug through the ashes to try and find that ring. They never did and Harvey still believes that it is there somewhere, even though the fire burned hot enough that it burned everything in the house to ashes. By the time that most of the stuff had been moved out the fire trucks had arrived. The only problem was that it was still a –40 out and the fire trucks froze up. After the fire truck froze up the house fire became so intense that the tractor actually had to be brought out the pull the truck away from the house before damage was caused. Eventually the house burned down completely. Today all that can be seen of it is the concrete basement wall. This event is remembered as the ‘most exciting thing that happened while we owned the ranch’ Mr. and Mrs. Fryberger recall. Marilyn stated that the birth of her three children was just as exciting though. This was just one of the many events that happened to the Frybergers during the 5 years that they resided on the Fryberger ranch. Some other fairly exciting and frightening events included a wind storm during one January or February. Harvey recalls that the wind was blowing somewhere over 50mph but below 90mph. However fast it was blowing was fast enough to create a great a mount of friction in the air, enough friction that the wind created lightning when there were no clouds in the sky. Harvey said that it was very frightening, though Marilyn doesn’t recall the event. Another event that both Harvey and Marilyn do recall though was one winter when it snowed enough to bury their car right out in front of their house. Other than these two events Harvey remembers the weather as fairly mild. Much happened during the 5 years out on the ranch including the step by step building of the ranch house and the raising of various small herds of sheep and cattle. Overall Harvey and Marilyn look back on the time on the ranch as fairly peaceful and happy years. Harvey and Marilyn are the parents of 4 children; Carol Myers, David Fryberger, Sue Martin, and Steve Fryberger. Sue Martin, my mother, is now caretaker of the ranch.