i m jamie colby. and today, i m driving in the badlands of eastern montana. it s rugged, big-sky, cattle-ranching country. i m on my way to meet a lifelong resident whose father left him a chunk of this land. nice to have you here. thanks for having us. my name s clayton phipps. and in 1997, my father passed away, and i inherited from him a small portion of the family ranch. and along with that came a few pretty exciting surprises. 41-year-old clayton phipps is like a character out of red river or lonesome dove. [ horse neighs ] most of the time, i m on my own. i m happy that way. this ranch had been in our family since my great-grandfather homesteaded here. and it s a part of me that i just didn t feel like i wanted to ever part with. clayton grew up and learned to cowboy here on the ranch his father shared with three brothers. he describes the operation as cash-poor but reasonably successful. my dad worked us hard, but that was a good thing, too. after
i m jamie colby. and today, i m driving in the badlands of eastern montana. it s rugged, big-sky, cattle-ranching country. i m on my way to meet a lifelong resident whose father left him a chunk of this land. nice to have you here. thanks for having us. my name s clayton phipps. and in 1997, my father passed away, and i inherited from him a small portion of the family ranch. and along with that came a few pretty exciting surprises. 41-year-old clayton phipps is like a character out of red river or lonesome dove. [ horse neighs ] most of the time, i m on my own. i m happy that way. this ranch had been in our family since my great-grandfather homesteaded here. and it s a part of me that i just didn t feel like i wanted to ever part with. clayton grew up and learned to cowboy here on the ranch his father shared with three brothers. he describes the operation as cash-poor but reasonably successful. my dad worked us hard, but that was a good thing, too. after
i m jamie colby. and today, i m driving in the badlands of eastern montana. it s rugged, big-sky, cattle-ranching country. i m on my way to meet a lifelong resident whose father left him a chunk of this land. nice to have you here. thanks for having us. my name s clayton phipps. and in 1997, my father passed away, and i inherited from him a small portion of the family ranch. and along with that came a few pretty exciting surprises. 41-year-old clayton phipps is like a character out of red river or lonesome dove. [ horse neighs ] most of the time, i m on my own. i m happy that way. this ranch had been in our family since my great-grandfather homesteaded here. and it s a part of me that i just didn t feel like i wanted to ever part with. clayton grew up and learned to cowboy here on the ranch his father shared with three brothers. he describes the operation as cash-poor but reasonably successful. my dad worked us hard, but that was a good thing, too. after
i m jamie colby, and today i m in birmingham, alabama, which is in the rolling foothills of the appalachians. they say that wars are fought to change maps, and this episode of strange inheritance is actually about a map, a very old map, and one that survives in a family whose history spans from texas to virginia and then back here to alabama. my name is patrick martin. my parents died in 1999, and my sister and i inherited the house and contents. we were surprised when we figured out what it contained. the house that patrick and his sister, peggy, inherited here in birmingham is now their home. patrick, thank you so much for having me over. it s our pleasure. patrick s parents moved to alabama from maryland and bought the house in the 1960s. patrick, an architect, returns to take care of his ill parents in 1994 but then has his own health scare. i had a quintuple bypass surgery here. patrick s heart trouble leads him to an early retirement at age 47. with lots
i m jamie colby, and, today, i am in big sky country, 100 miles north of billings, montana. i m here to meet a family who have lived here for nearly a century but only recently learned that an archeological wonder was staring them right in the face. my name is macie ahlgren. in 2000, my father died and left me this ranch. he also left me with the steep challenge of figuring out how to keep the family on the land. hi, macie. i m jamie. hi. welcome to bear gulch. thanks for writing. and you said you had something extraordinary to show me. does it include bears? i have something much better. let s go. i d love to see. bear gulch ranch, named after the creek that winds through the property, is the kind of place you envision when singing america the beautiful. purple mountain majesty and all that. how many years has it been in your family? since 1919. my grandfather came from minnesota. he and my grandmother and their two daughters moved here and decided to purch