Visitor Information

Calendar

Comforts

What to see & do

Weather

History
- Sullivan Roadhouse
- Richardson Highway
- Our City Name
- End of the Ak Hwy
- Three Pipelines
- Stories of Delta

Facts

 Business/Relocation

 Local news

 Site Map

Judy Ferguson's first book, Parallel Destinies sells for $19.95 and can be purchased through Judy Ferguson at 907-895-4101 or outpost@wildak.net.  It is also for sale at Diehls', Granite View, Kelly's Country Inn, Tanana Trading Post and other stores.  It can be purchased on-line from Outdoors Alaska.

Interested in fishing while you are in Alaska?  Take a look at the selection of fishing books on our partner site OutdoorsDirectory.com  Click on the image for more information.

Gail Keaster, wife of Wes Keaster, walks through a Delta cattle pasture with their daughter Lacey in 1980. (Photo courtesy of Keaster family)

Partners corralled Delta beef enterprises

By JUDY FERGUSON

DELTA--In the front yard of Joe Mead's Clearwater ranch, he and his friend, Al Remington, had GIs building pens for Delta's first rodeo in May 1968. Partner young Doug McCollum was down the Alaska-Canada highway, hauling up a string of Canadian range horses, potential "buckers." Wes Keaster, only 16, was working with the horses Mead wintered.

Delta was a different place then. The bars outnumbered the churches, and the unofficial unemployment agency was the Buffalo Lodge.

"Delta would have been different if all business could have been done on a bar stool, at the Buffalo," McCollum, the owner of Delta Concrete Products and Delta Meat and Sausage Co., said on a recent spring day. "Why, those guys were stumbling over more opportunities than you could shake a stick at," he laughed.

One day in 1954, as a kid in Montana, McCollum spotted out his schoolhose window cattle being loaded on a truck bound for Alaska. Local rancher Remington was leading a caravan to Clearwater, to homestead.

During the years he traveled back and forth between Montana and Alaska to help his dad in Clearwater, he often talked to McCollum as the industrious teen-ager grew up. Remington and his homesteading partner, Walt Keaster repeatedly said to the young man, "Anyone who's not afraid to work oughta come to Alaska."

By the time he turned 24, McCollum had decided to "go north, get a stake and someday ... create cows."

Teaming with Mead and Remington, McCollum observed that ranching in 1967 was hard scrabble.

"If Joe Mead ran out of feed for his horses," Wes Keaster said, "he just opened the gate, gave `Betsy' a shove, saying, `Get along, girl, the best you can."'

When, however, a passing motorist hit one of Mead's horses scrounging on the Clearwater, the open range was closed.

"I couldn't afford to have my beef forage like that today," Keaster, a successful Angus grower, explained. "We run a cow/calf operation, trying to compete with the Lower 48 market. Everything has to be lock stepped: calf, grass finisher, feed lot, to get a premium-grade meat. We're looking for consistency to please the restaurant clientele."

Competing with meat imported from Outside, Delta ranchers are tightening up into a local, full circle market. Keaster's cow/calf program, Scott Miller's commercial feed lot and McCollum's slaughterhouse are working toward supporting one another. Issues concerning breed preference, use of steroids and federal monies keep the dialogue lively.

In 1984, McCollum traveled to North Dakota, investigating the cold weather resistant Paulson Galloway steer.

"Ah, it's practically a cross between a cow and a buffalo," Miller, a cross Angus grower, remarked. "They have a reputation of being hard to handle and slower to fatten, but I do have 25 I'm finishing up to butcher. I'm willing to try them if these work out," he added.

Starting with one bull and 17 heifers, McCollum's herd today, has increased to 400, grazing a 1,000-acre spread.

"My hobby kinda got outta hand," he said.

While he harvested hay, riding for hours on his tractor, McCollum dreamed up the Delta Meat and Sausage Co., a slaughterhouse, converted from the Craig Taylor warehouse.

The McCollums' son-in-law and daughter, Russ and Jeannie Pinkelman, today, operate the full-scale, state-inspected meat plant.

When asked what else might be in the hopper, Cathie McCollum said, "Just don't let him get on that tractor. I get worried when I see him out there, dreamin'. Lately, he's been talking about a sileage bagging operation." 

Judy Ferguson is a free-lance writer living in Delta. 

Back to Stories of Delta home page

Home | Visitor Information | Business & Relocation | Local News | Calendar | Site Map