While visiting Oxford, England, in 1885, Wyomingite Bill Wyndham of the Diamond Tail Ranch had invited the two students to his ranch down south on Sand Creek, Colorado. Arthur and George quickly embraced Western living. They immersed themselves in the culture, riding to hounds with Dr. Stokes, dining on fresh New York oysters at the magnificent Flagg Ranch, hunting big game, and cutting hay on the Diamond Tail with a horse-drawn scythe, helping stack great piles of nutrition to sustain cattle and horses through the harsh winters, a novel management approach for the West.

Giddy with the scenic beauty (and perhaps the altitude), Arthur and George set off to hunt antelope one evening after the hay was up. Wearing the light-colored buckskin suits of the day, they grabbed their long rifles and pursued a stray buck up a narrow canyon. Hoping to get ahead of the fleeing animal, George scaled to the top of the gulch and advanced quickly on foot while Arthur approached very slowly from below.

Imagine Arthur's anguish when, after drawing on and firing his rifle at a perceived mountain lion, he discovered he had shot his best friend in the temple. Distraught, he could not return to England to finish his studies. Besides, he could not leave because George was buried in the Laramie cemetery under a magnificent headstone supplied by the family. Ironically, George's favorite cousin was subsequently lost overboard on a voyage to Australia, and the peerage passed along..

So Whitehouse bought into Stoke's ranch and began earnestly building the horse flesh business with Axel Palmer. The ranch was commonly referred to as the Stokes and Whitehouse Ranch. But Arthur Stokes had a wanderlust, so he sold the ranch to Whitehouse for $12 and went to Canada. In 1887, Arthur registered it as "The Oxford Horse Ranch" in memory of his best friend.

Eventually, Arthur Whitehouse realized he needed a wife. Inspired by Arthur Stokes' abilities as a trained veterinarian, he left the ranch in the hands of his capable manager, Axel Palmer. His first stop was New York City, where he married Sara S. Digges in her Manhattan home. [insert portrait of Whitehouse and Digges] The couple then moved to Ontario, Canada, where Whitehouse finished his degree in Veterinary Medicine in less than two whirlwind years. Returning to Laramie in the summer of 1894, Sara passed her time tending a large flock of hens and selling fresh eggs to the people of Laramie. She also dabbled in watercolor painting, enshrining the western ranching lifestyle on her papyrus paper. The Whitehouses occupied the brick mansion house while Axel Palmer and his wife raised their infant daughter in the ranch house. [insert photo of ranch house with folks on the porch]

The newly minted Dr. Arthur Whitehouse proudly hung out his shingle as a traveling veterinarian while Axel Palmer and brother Gus kept the horse ranching business humming like a top. They sold hundreds of cavalry mounts and draft horses to the US Government, shipping them east by train. During one unfortunate shipment, the train derailed in Kansas, killing most of the horses that were intended for Theodore Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill in Puerto Rico.

Whitehouse traveled far and wide, tending to horses as far away as Nebraska. In his travels, he became known for his witty conversation as well as his keen appreciation of horseflesh. But the invention of the automobile greatly curtailed the horse-selling business. The Panic of 1893 (followed closely on the heels of the disastrous winter of 1888 when 80% of all Wyoming livestock perished), caused the collapse of seven hundred American banks.. The US government itself came close to failure. Even the mighty Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) declared bankruptcy, but the Union Pacific Corporation did not. Protected by its straw corporations, the corporate stockholders survived. Gilded Age Robber Barons succeeded in defeating the newly reelected Democratic President Grover Cleveland before he was even inaugurated.