Ralph Chain and the Chain Ranch: Six Generations on Oklahoma Grass

Who Is Ralph Chain?

Ralph Chain, born in 1927, was the head of the Chain Ranch, a family cattle operation west of Canton in northwestern Oklahoma. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum lists his life as 1927 to 2018 and his Hall of Great Westerners induction as 2011. An Oklahoma Farm Bureau radio segment from April 2004 reported that the 77-year-old Canton rancher had become the seventh member of the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame.

A 2016 profile in Oklahoma Farm & Ranch describes the ranch as a six-generation operation and its owner as nearly 90 years old at the time.

How the Chain Ranch Started

According to the Oklahoma Farm & Ranch profile, Ralph's grandfather Oscar Chain bought the first 160 acres in 1883 for $50 and a shotgun. A 2015 American Cowboy article gives a different version: Oscar, at 18, traded $50 and a shotgun for land in the 1893 Cherokee Strip Land Run, on ground just north of present-day Canton. The two sources differ on the year, and the Cherokee Strip date is the one tied to a historic land opening.

Oscar's son Leonard, Ralph's father, focused on machinery and cattle feeding. The family bought neighbors' land during the Depression and Dust Bowl, according to the American Cowboy article on Chain Ranch.

The Three-Link Brand

Cattle on the ranch carry the Chain brand, a chain with three links. American Cowboy reports that Ralph drew the brand when he was about ten or twelve and started using it around age fifteen, and that he says the links stand for his grandfather, his father and himself.

The article does not name a cattle breed. The Oklahoma Farm & Ranch profile says he keeps a longhorn herd.

From 160 Acres to Multiple Ranches

The 2016 profile says the ranch grew under Ralph to more than 60,000 acres across seven locations in Oklahoma and Kansas. The American Cowboy piece, written a year earlier, says it covers six ranches in the two states and gives no total acreage. Counts of the ranch's locations vary between articles, so treat the 60,000-acre figure as reported.

The same profile says he uses a bulldozer to preserve the land his grandfather and father left him.

Honors and Recognition

Chain was the seventh member of the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame, according to an Oklahoma Farm Bureau radio report dated April 19, 2004. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum inducted him into the Hall of Great Westerners in 2011, and the hall's listing describes him as a cattleman and an agro-tourism pioneer.

The sources reviewed for this profile do not detail his agritourism work, so this entry does not describe it. The museum's own records are the best place to look for that part of the story.

Learn More

The Oklahoma Farm Bureau radio page marks his Ag Hall of Fame induction. For related stories about Oklahoma ranch families, see the ranching section of farm.FM and a farm.FM story about longhorns and family ranches.