Ranch History

Hague Angus Ranch’s History and Founding

My roots as a cow calf producer in western Nebraska begin with my great great grandpa acquiring Hereford cows and ground by Lakeside, NE in the late 1800s.  He started the Mule Shoe Bar Ranch southeast of Alliance with his sons, known as the Peterson Brothers. 

The name Hague comes from the original settler of the land during the Homestead Act that we are now on.  There is not a lot of information about him, other than his name was Hague and my family the Peterson brothers acquired the land in the early 1920′s.  The Peterson brothers split the 100,000 acres into separate places.  The piece that Gust and Flossie (Great Grandparents) got was comprised of the Miles, the Gentile, the Kickin, and The Hague.  My grandma had a brother that led to another split into halves again, and Martha and John (grandparents) got the Kickin and The Hague.  Her brother and family got the Gentile and the Miles places. 

My grandpa John and dad formed the corporation 9 Over 9 Cattle Company in the 80′s which then came fully under my dad’s control in 1985.  Now with my brother and I and our families running the ranch we have decided to make another split on good terms between my brother and I.  Which all leads up to the formation and creation of Hague Angus Ranch.  The Hague Ranch has been around for a little over a century.  We were just fortunate and blessed to have acquired it many years ago, and will keep in the in family for generations to come! 

Grandpa through the 1960’s and 1970’s had Hereford’s.  He introduced Red Angus and Simmental in the 70’s.  My dad got good at pulling calves.  After doing percentage cattle for a number of years, my dad bought his first Angus bull in 1986.  We haven’t turned back since.  Luckily my dad did not follow the fads too much, and didn’t get caught up in the numbers and growth too much.  A lot of milk and growth made sense when you calved in January and fed your cows every day with a mixer wagon.  My dad saw the light though and started moving calving dates back to late March and feeding the cows out on range.  When he started pulling the groceries, he saw more opens, mastitis, and overall problems.  He knew his cows got too big and had too much milk, which is when he took his first step in the right direction and visited a handful of low input producers around Nebraska and South Dakota.   That was in 1999.  He knocked out some frame and added some efficiency from 1999 to 2007. 

After many shoulder surgeries from college baseball my college years finished up in 2007.  I then met Josie my wife in North Platte and decided it was time to get back to the ranch from college and take things further down the low input grass genetic road.  I have maintained the body type that my dad proved to work.  We formed Hague Angus Ranch LLC in 2011 buying our first registered females.  All I did was fine tune the genetics and bring registered cattle into the operation, but believe me, papers never changed the way we run them.  And there still isn’t a bit of sympathy for the ones that aren’t working for us!