Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. Today, we’re heading up to the Last Frontier.
Ranch dressing was created by a plumbing contractor and his wife in Alaska.
I just spent a week in Alaska, and my goodness, what an incredible place.
It’s pretty wild to feel your jaw drop as you turn every corner. The state’s nickname is “The Last Frontier,” and it’s clear why. There’s a vastness you simply don’t get in any other state.
At any given moment, you could come face-to-face with a bear.
Or a moose could decide the road directly in front of you is now a pedestrian crossing.
Or you can realize you’re the only person within shouting distance, even amongst an echo-y mountain range. That’s a very calming feeling.
In most of these situations, you likely won’t have ranch dressing on your person. But in all of those settings, you’d be in the home of the versatile condiment.
Back in the 1950s, a plumber named Steve Henson and his wife Gayle were living in Anchorage, Alaska. When Steve wasn’t plumbing, the duo liked coming up with concoctions to feed the work crews.
They experimented with a nameless dressing mixed with buttermilk and mayonnaise. It soon became a go-to for many meals, pairing nicely with lots of different foods.
The Hensons moved a few years later, eventually purchasing a 120-acre ranch outside of Santa Barbara, California. He retired by age 35 (a dream) and named his new ranch Hidden Valley Ranch. Steve and Gayle brought their dressing with them to serve at the ranch’s steakhouse.
A Los Angeles Times story from 1987 includes a letter from Alan Barker, who lived and worked at the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch in Santa Barbara from 1959 to 1963. Barker adds more detail about the Hensons’ creation.
“We ate it on everything from steaks to, in a comical moment, ice cream. The guests at the ranch first began asking for jars of it to take home for themselves, and then wanted larger quantities for their friends. They took it in liquid form in mayonnaise jars. The impracticality of this led to packaging the mix as a powder,” Barker wrote.
Corroborating Barker’s story, by 1957, Henson was selling packages of his dressing mix in stores. He later offered the dry ingredients via mail for a modest price of 75 cents per package.
The guest ranch was closed by the 1960s, but the “ranch dressing” mail order business was better than ever.
In October of 1972, Clorox purchased the Hidden Valley Ranch brand for $8 million, or nearly $64 million in today’s money. Henson once again got to retire.
Today, you’ll find ranch incorporated in just about everything. Clorox developed a bottled version in 1983 that didn’t need to be refrigerated. One of my friends enjoyed drinking straight from the bottle in high school.
I believe he has since kicked this habit, though maybe he still savors a sip or two. I prefer using ranch more as a dip, but to each their own.
In any case, whether you’re indulging in a bit of ranch dressing, eating some Cool Ranch Doritos, heading to a ranch for a weekend getaway, or listening to the Blink-182 album Dude Ranch, I hope you have a splendid time.
Clorox? Seriously, Joey? This was a lot of fun. Thank you!