One of the things my wife and I like to do in the summer is take day trips. This year, we decided to travel north to Pawhuska and visit arguably the most famous ranch in the state and home of the Pioneer Woman herself, Ree Drummond.
Drummond, or as her millions of fans know her, “The Pioneer Woman,” is a blogger, author, television personality, and businesswoman who became famous by sharing stories about her life on a ranch in Oklahoma. She was born Anne Marie Smith on Jan. 6, 1969, in Bartlesville. After attending college at the University of Southern California, she returned to Oklahoma, where she met rancher Ladd Drummond. The two married and started a family.
In 2006, at the height of the blogging craze, she started her own called “The Pioneer Woman,” where she shared stories about cooking, family life, photography, and ranch living. Her blog became extremely popular, eventually leading to cookbooks and catching the attention of the Food Network.
The Food Network started as a small instructional cable channel in 1993 but has since transformed into a global multimedia powerhouse. It began with professional chefs like Emeril Lagasse, Sara Moulton, and Mario Batali teaching cooking techniques. However, as viewership began to decline in the 2000s, the network shifted toward more home cooks, lifestyle programming and competition shows featuring stars like Ina Garten, Sandra Lee, Rachel Ray and my personal favorite Alton Brown.
It was during this transition period, in 2011, that “The Pioneer Woman” premiered. While many other cooking shows eventually disappeared, “The Pioneer Woman” has remained one of the last true cooking instruction programs on the network. Filmed directly on her remote Oklahoma ranch, Drummond brings an accessible, family-focused charm that connects with home viewers. She combines step-by-step comfort food recipes with a nostalgic look into her everyday life as a ranch wife and mother.
Yet Drummond is not your typical ranch wife. She also runs a massive business. In 2015, she launched her Pioneer Woman line of kitchenware and cookware at Walmart, many pieces of which we own ourselves. That brand eventually expanded into clothing, furniture, and other home products.
Then in 2016, she purchased a 100-year-old building in Pawhuska, near their ranch, and transformed it into The Pioneer Woman Mercantile, which includes a restaurant, bakery, and general store. Think of a larger, more modern Cracker Barrel.
After shopping and enjoying a great meal, we headed out to the beautiful ranch surrounded by rolling Oklahoma hills where Drummond films her show. The lodge house is open for tours, and visitors can walk through the stunning four-bedroom home featuring great rooms, a prep kitchen, and of course, the main kitchen that fans see on Saturday mornings.
However, we did not drive straight to the ranch because, along the way, we spotted an unexpected surprise: the Ben Johnson Cowboy Museum. When you love Westerns as much as I do, and you have a son who lives for classic films, you have to stop.
It turns out Ben Johnson grew up in Osage County, working on a ranch for his father. The story the curator told us was that in 1943, director Howard Hughes needed horses for his upcoming film “The Outlaw” and paid Johnson to bring them. At the time, Johnson was making $45 a month, and Hughes offered him $500 to stay on as a wrangler and stuntman. Johnson accepted and never returned to ranching.
It was legendary director John Ford who saw him working and hired him for his 1948 film “Fort Apache” as an extra and riding double for Henry Fonda. Johnson went on to star in dozens of films, often playing the right-hand man of John Wayne. Some of his films include three “Godfather” films, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “Mighty Joe Young,” “Rio Grande,” “Fort Defiance,” “Shane,” “Major Dundee,” “Will Penny,” “Hang ’Em High,” “The Wild Bunch,” “The Undefeated,” “Chisum,” “The Sugarland Express,” “Red Dawn,” and “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”
In 1971, Johnson won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Sam the Lion in Larry McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show.”
In 1953, Johnson also won the RCA Team Roping World Championship and was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame of the American Cowboy in 1979. Johnson remains the only person to win both a rodeo championship and an Academy Award. He did not just play a cowboy on television, he truly lived the cowboy life.
In 2019, the Ben Johnson museum opened its doors and is now located just around the block from the Mercantile in Pawhuska.
About half of the museum focuses on Johnson’s movie career, while the other half highlights his rodeo life and the Western heritage of Osage County.
Pawhuska is definitely off the beaten path, and many of its visitors are coming because of Drummond and The Pioneer Woman. But if you enjoy her ranch lifestyle, classic movies, or Western history, take the time to visit the museum and learn about the life of a true Western legend.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at james.finck@swoknews.com.