Contributed photo

Contributed photo

Remarks:
One in a long list of Brokeback paradoxes is that Annie Proulx never went to Lightning Flat, yet she saw her Twist Ranch long before she wrote about it.

Annie Proulx grew to love Wyoming as a resident writer at the Ucross Foundation, a 22,000 acre creative campus on the site of a working cattle ranch at Ucross, WY. She wrote much of The Shipping News there and continues to serve as a trustee emeritus of the foundation. The elite organization provides a supremely peaceful setting where carefully selected resident writers, artists, and composers are indulged with the luxuries of time, space, and quiet to do their work.

It was during her residency at Ucross that Proulx first saw “the old Childress place,” an isolated ranch house some 10 miles from the Ucross campus. Beautiful in its austerity and supremely true to its setting, it made an enduring impression, one that she would summon to paper in writing what many consider to be Brokeback Mountain’s most dramatic scene.

In 1998, when Proulx showed director Gus Van Sant potential Wyoming locations for his ill-fated Brokeback Mountain attempt, she arranged for him to see the old Childress place. Proulx’s apostrophe to the home that inspired the story’s dramatic climax can be found in one of the story’s countless subtleties, “Childress, Texas.”

The house has also been the subject of other artistic endeavors. See:
http://ethanjackson.net/index.php/site/works/C12

See:
http://www.ucrossfoundation.org/index1.html

Important:
Rattlesnake activity is very common inside and around the building; take appropriate precautions. (One person we spoke with said he “killed three [rattlesnakes] during his last visit,” as if he was describing houseflies.) Wear boots and protective gear. Always obtain appropriate permission before entering private property. Those planning to enter old buildings should bring flashlights and be cautious of loose or missing floorboards and railings. Use caution; the driveway may require a four wheel drive / high-profile vehicle. The building has been the subject of pilferage and vandalism. Please leave all that you find intact out of respect for the history, both real and fictional, of this powerful place.

Quotation:
“We finished the day at a lonely ranch house outside Ucross called ‘the old Childress place.’” [1]

[1] Brokeback Mountain - Story to Screenplay by Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (Scribner) ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9416-4, page 135.