The historic Circle Ranch, also known as the R.L. Miller Ranch, is located about four miles southwest of Big Piney, Wyoming. The Circle Ranch complex consists of fourteen buildings, including a large wood frame ranch house built in 1905, garage, pumphouse, storage house, ice house, two bunkhouses, chicken coop, pig sty, and barn. The key buildings in the complex are two original log structures. The first is a homestead cabin built by early pioneer Nicolas Swan between 1878 and 1880, and the second is the homestead cabin of Otto Leifer also built between 1878 and 1880. The Circle Ranch has been continuously occupied as a working cattle ranch for over 100 years. It became one of the most economically successful and enduring cattle operations in Wyoming and provided an important economic base for the town of Big Piney and the surrounding ranching community. Furthermore, its owners served the community and state in political and business leadership roles. It was established by Otto Leifer in 1878 in an unsettled region nearly 100 miles from the nearest railhead. In 1895 he sold his ranch and livestock to a pioneer LaBarge rancher, James Mickelson. In a short period of time, Mickelson developed the Circle Ranch into the largest ranch in the region and it has remained in the Mickelson family since.

The Dunham Place is being nominated under Criterion A at the local level for the areas of Agriculture and Exploration/Settlement. The Dunham Place ranch has been a working agricultural property since it was first homesteaded and the ranch grew and evolved over time from a small homestead, to a working ranch, to a tenant ranch, and finally into a satellite ranch used seasonally to work cattle as part of a much larger ranching operation. In this, the Dunham Place represents the evolution of ranching over time from the early days of the ranching and farming industry in the Upper Green River Valley into the modern era. 

The Dunham Place is also being nominated under Criterion C at the local level for architecture. As ranches age and evolve over time, most of the existing ranch infrastructure is replaced or altered as needed to meet the needs of the operation, with the owners utilizing modern building materials as they become available. The remote nature of the Dunham Place, combined with its relatively early evolution into a tenant and satellite ranch, has served to preserve the historic ranching materials without the introduction of modern materials such as milled lumber, metal, or synthetic materials. The almost exclusive use of unfinished log is an extreme rarity for a working agricultural property in Wyoming.

The Dunham Place meets the listing requirements of Wyoming’s “Ranches, Farms, and Homesteads in Wyoming, 1860-1960” for both Criteria A and C. The house was constructed as a ranch home and was the center of ranching operations during the Dunham period; it continues to serve as temporary headquarters during satellite operations (Criterion A). The house retains the necessary integrity of workmanship, design, and materials necessary for listing under Criterion C. The rest of the ranch infrastructure meets the requirements for a historic district under the same criteria as they are critical to understand the workings of the ranch and how those workings changed over time as the use of the ranch changed. The contributing elements of the ranch all retain the integrity aspects of materials, design, and workmanship necessary listed as necessary in the Multiple Property Designation.

The period of significance for the Dunham Ranch begins in 1911 with the construction of the first extant ranch structures and extends to 1974. The end date was deliberately selected to encompass all of the ranch buildings and structures as they demonstrate the ongoing use and evolution of the ranch over time.