About Us

The Ranch

For hundreds of years Ute Indians occupied areas of what is today known as Rio Ro Mo Ranch near Craig, Colorado. Tribal pottery shards and arrowheads can still be unearthed on the ranch. As pioneers worked their way West, the need to extend them supplies and information grew too. In the late 1800s, the Pony Express built a Stage Stop on the land to handle the mail intended to reach the West’s earliest adventurers.

In 1909, Albert Culverwell put down roots, homesteading 140 acres of raw ranch land. As conservative as he was penurious, Culverwell, unlike the majority of ranchers in the Old West, amassed a fortune in land holdings, strategically purchasing his neighbors homesteads as they went bust and retreated to town.

Albert’s son, H.G. Culverwell, was raised on the ranch and eventually bought out his father’s ownership, continuing all the while to buy up even more neighboring property. H.G. found that as a large landowner, it was easier for him to obtain the credit for land purchases than it would have been for others borrow money to buy even a small tract of land.  

Seven decades later in 1974, Gerald Culverwell, H.G.’s son and Albert’s grandson, bought out his dad’s ownership, changing the name of the ranch to Rio Ro Mo—short for Rio Blanco, Routt and Moffat counties as the ranch extended over 42,000 acres in those three adjoining counties. Gerald continued to ranch 3,000 head of sheep, 550 head of mother cows and 2000 acres of wheat.  

Changing economic conditions and 18 percent interest forced Gerald’s hand in the continued operations of Rio Ro Mo. Since its beginning, the ranch had never been funded by CRP programs (government programs compensating the rancher for not farming the land). The only thing Gerald could do was to sell off some of the acreage and the sheep ranching business, reducing the overall acreage to a yet-extraordinary 20,000-plus acre tract.

Fifteen years ago in 1994, Rodney Culverwell, great grandson of Albert, grandson of H.G. and son of Gerald, bought his father out of the ranching business.

Remnants of abandoned log cabins and one-room country school houses dot the high prairie where a wealth of illustrious western heroes and anti-heroes, the likes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, made their bones. Butch and Sundance are documented as having crossed the Rio Ro Mo Ranch, only one-quarter mile from the homestead of Val Fitzpatrick’s parents’ home who served dinner to the two, referenced in the book "The Arbuckle Café.” And the Rio Ro Mo Ranch has been immortalized in the book entitled "The Bassett Women." The biographical tale of settling the West recalls Queen Annie Bassett’s travel to Craig for supplies, fighting off an attack by the outlaws of Brown's Park. 

Today, the location of Ivory Outfitters on the family-owned Rio Ro Mo Ranch provides an idyllic setting in which to experience the challenge of hunting a variety of game.