Lifetime Leaders of Rodeo & Ranching Rodeo Ranching Great Westerner Western Entertaiment & Arts Rodeo Producers & Livestock Special Achievement Cowboy Long Rider Legacy Award

Ranching

Andrew Voigt
2001 Hall of Fame Ranching Inductee

  Andrew Voigt was born February 7, 1867, in Saxony, Germany, a son of Wilhelm and Theresa (Meyer) Voigt. The family immigrated to Minnesota in 1879, and Andrew married Anna Berger in 1889.

 The couple shared a dream of ranching so Andrew left for North Dakota in 1900. Eventually, he settled north of Halliday, and his wife and seven sons joined him in 1902. They added two daughters to the family and increased their herds of Hereford cattle, Percheron horses and a flock of sheep.

 In 1912, the Voigts moved across the Little Missouri River, about four miles west of Elbowoods where they built a three-story frame house. Andrew and his sons broke sod and farmed more than 400 acres with horses and mules. He was noted for wolf hunting with hounds, chasing coyotes and tangling with rattlesnakes.

 An undated newspaper article from a Minneapolis newspaper says the Voigt home had “running water, Oriental rugs, a phonograph, a profusion of flowers and electrical lights in every building on the place. It adds, “A fur rug, from a wildcat caught on the place, and a mountain goat head give the home a touch of the picturesque.” The article also mentions the operation’s smokehouse, root cellar and blacksmith/farrier shop.

 The Voigt Ranch became the “headquarters of hospitality” for both whites and Indians, and Andrew was always ready to help anyone in need. One of his friends, Crows Heart, named him, “Big Heart White Man, Can’t Say No.” Andrew was a Christian man who donated beef and mutton, time and talent, to the Catholic Mission School at Elbowoods.

 Anna died in 1931, and Andrew married Monica Gress in 1935, gaining 12 stepchildren.

 He died in 1939–before the Garrison Dam flooded his precious 2,000 acres of rich bottomland.

 Andrew was named a 50-Years-in-the-Saddle member and North Dakota’s sixth honoree elected to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on January 22, 1962.