The Cattlewoman Who Saved a Castle Above Sedalia

On a bluff above Sedalia sits a stone castle with English and Scottish detailing, built between 1924 and 1926 by Denver businessman Charles Alfred Johnson and architect Burnham Hoyt. But the person who made it last was someone else entirely.

In 1954, Mildred Montague Genevieve Kimball, known to everyone as Tweet, bought the castle and a neighboring ranch and combined them into Cherokee Ranch. She did not treat the place as a showpiece. She brought Santa Gertrudis cattle up from Texas and bred them to handle Colorado’s colder winters, proving the doubters wrong. In 1961 she founded the Rocky Mountain Santa Gertrudis Association, and she later pushed the National Western Stock Show to hold its first sale of the breed.

Her last big move was the quiet, lasting one. In 1996 she worked with Douglas County and the Douglas County Open Lands Coalition to place a conservation easement on the ranch, protecting roughly 3,400 acres of grassland and wildlife habitat from development. She also created the foundation that runs the castle today.

Here is the plan-for-this part: the ranch is private and opens to visitors by reservation only, through guided castle tours, teas, and events. Booking ahead is the whole game. Check what is on the calendar at cherokeeranch.org.