Alcova Sweet Corn

The stand at mile post 92

About 20 miles out of Casper on Highway 220, toward Alcova, a corn cooler and a John Deere tractor mark mile post 92. In late summer, ears sell there by the dozen, cash only, with no credit or debit cards. In 2025 the stand’s posts told drivers to watch for signs and ribbons. The University of Wyoming Extension’s specialty crop directory lists Alcova Sweet Corn under Natrona County and names Stacey and Ron Richner as its owners.

Carrots, beets, zucchini, summer squash and cucumbers grow alongside the corn. Most of these go to the Natrona County Master Gardeners Farmers Market at the Ag building near the fairgrounds entrance in Casper. The market runs Saturday mornings from 7:30 until noon or until the produce sells out. In 2026 the stand’s page said to look for the black Ford at the front of the building, south end. At the last market of 2025 it brought green and golden zucchini, carrots, turnips, cucumbers, a few beets and cabbages, and flowers. Earlier that August it had sunflowers and bouquets.

The season is a matter of days, and the stand’s Facebook page keeps the count. In 2025 the corn came in the last weekend of August at $9 a dozen. The stand closed for three days midweek “to let the corn a veggies grown some more.” A single pick-your-own day was set for Saturday, September 6, at $7 a dozen, with a warning: “Wear pants, closed toed shoes, it is weedy.” The highway stand sold its last ears the next day. “Great to see people we only get to see during corn season,” the page wrote.

Hail in August 2026

On August 7, 2026, the page reported the corn tasseling: “the bees are buzzing!!” It thanked Sunshine Honey Co. for the bees. Hail struck the following week. On August 21 the page said the storm had been “brutal on the plants. They are trying to recover.” The stand skipped that Saturday’s market.

The corn reached the farmers market on August 29, and the highway stand opened Sunday, August 30, at $10 a dozen. The page warned of a limited supply “due to hail and Mother Nature” and said there would be no pick-your-own. On Wednesday, September 2, it announced the last day and listed the season’s troubles: “hail, deer, raccoons, worms, heat, drought.” That evening it posted that the corn was sold out.

Twenty-four rows on Miles Land and Livestock

The corn first went to market in 1960. Harry and Kay Eichorn were living and working on what was then the Miles Land and Livestock ranch north of Alcova. “We began with 24 rows, maybe 30 feet long, of sweet corn,” Kay told the Wyoming Livestock Roundup in 2010. “We grew it for ourselves, and to feed the ranch hands. When we first started we also hauled corn to various markets and groceries in town, and at that time we hand-picked everything.”

The government camp was still in Alcova then, filled with families who worked at the power plant. Their children came out each season to pick. “I ram-rodded probably up to 15 kids in those days,” Kay said. “Some of them stayed at our place, while others were shuttled back and forth to Alcova.” The Eichorns had four children of their own. Three grandchildren grew up in the patch, and in 2009 two great-granddaughters, aged six and four, were out picking corn “and thinking it was wonderful.”

In the early years the Eichorns staggered their plantings so the corn could be hauled to town as it ripened. Traffic to Alcova Reservoir picked up in the 1970s. After that, Kay said, they no longer had to haul corn to town, because everyone from town came out for their own. With more business, the whole crop came to be planted at once.

Pickups, sprinklers and a machete

Weekends meant picking ahead. “With the kids, it was always a challenge to see how high they could get it stacked on the pickup, and how many truckloads we could get ahead of the game,” Kay said. “By Sunday evening, when all the people from the lake were headed to town, it wasn’t a fun time to keep up with the demand.” The Eichorns set sprinklers on top of the loaded pickups to keep the ears cool. An automatic picker later replaced hand-picking. It strips everything off one row at a time, so the ears must be sorted before they are counted into dozens.

The variety changed often, because seed dealers kept substituting new ones. “It’s always an experimental thing,” Kay said. “I can remember one year where it almost took a machete to get the ears of corn off the stalks.” Whatever the variety, it had to ripen in about 58 to 62 days, and planting waited on the spring. The corn has been grown in rotation with alfalfa from the start. “We tried to do three years of sweet corn, then put it back in alfalfa,” Kay said.

Antelope were the first pest. The state Game and Fish said antelope would not eat corn. Then they ate the silks off a patch the Eichorn children had grown for 4-H, and that corn was lost. “We had a to-do with the Game and Fish about antelope,” Kay said. By 2010 blackbirds gave the most trouble. She remembered a 94-year-old man who insisted on picking his own ears from the wild, irrigated rows. “He thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing as he picked sweet corn,” she said.

Kay froze the leftover corn at the end of each season, with friends helping to put it up. Casper cooks did the same. In June 2012, K2 Radio reprinted a recipe that Sally Ann Shurmur of the Casper Star-Tribune posted regularly, credited to Marge Claytor’s “Country Corn Cookin.” It calls for 36 ears of Alcova sweet corn, a pound of butter and a pint of half-and-half, baked an hour and stirred every 15 minutes, then bagged and frozen. The station added: “There will be no Alcova Corn again this year.” The word “again” suggests there was no crop the year before either.

From the Eichorns to Gray Reef Ranch

Harry Eichorn retired in 1984, and his son Jerry managed the corn through 2005. That year the Casper Star-Tribune ran “Alcova corn ready for pickin’,” opening on a rustle in the cornfield, a giggle, and “a blond head peeking around a tall stalk of corn.” Also in 2005 the ranch was sold to John Martin and became Gray Reef Ranch. Ranch employees Stacy and Mark Schmidt took over the corn, and Jerry stayed on to advise them.

The 2010 crop, the fiftieth, followed a cool, wet June and came in late, around Labor Day weekend. Kay still watched it. “We need warm nights to put the sweetness in the corn and make it develop,” she said. Radio spots and a few newspaper advertisements spread word of the harvest. “The Eichorns built it up so big, and it’s so popular,” Stacy Schmidt said, “that people look for us at the road to know when it’s ready.”