George, his wife and four children lived in a one-room wooden shack with a dugout next to it, and five more children would be born on the homestead.  The family raised crops of wheat and corn until the drought came but also raised hogs, horses and mules.  As the hardships increased, George acquired land from neighbors, who’d had enough and were leaving town.

George stubbornly remained, but eventually prospered.  After returning from WWII, George’s son Mahlon started a ranch on adjoining land and eventually inherited that of his father as well.  He, his wife and 16 children lived in the old 1917 Shamrock School house and expanded the original homestead.  They had 200 head of cattle and sometimes dryland crops.

Mahlon’s son Jeff, who always enjoyed working the ranch with his father, now runs the ranch, which has increased to 6500 acres.  A clever entrepreneurial thinker, Jeff has supplemented the cattle ranch with a custom hay business, a good idea in times of drought and high feed prices.