Ludvig Lindback came from Sweden to Carbon County Wyoming in 1888 at age 18. Here he met and married Elizabeth Madison, and they lived in company housing while Ludvig was employed in the coal mines of Diamondville. In 1902 in a secondhand wagon pulled by a team, they moved to the Cottonwood Creek area. The family lived in a wall tent, where yet another child was born. In time, with more children arriving for a total of 8,,the Lindbacks built a house. They used the CK brand (the last 2 letters of their last name) from 1903 on.

The Lindbacks were important early settlers and long time residents. As the children grew older, some left their parents’ Cottonwood Ranch and went on to homestead their own places. Ross Meeks was born in 1912 in Burris and he married Emma Lindback in Burris in 1931. Soon after they were married Ross and Emma moved to the Cottonwood Creek area, close to where Emma was raised, where they both filed for a 640 acre patent.

In 1952 Ross and Emma Meeks bought family members homesteads and in 1966 they purchased the CK Ranch on Cottonwood Creek from Emma’s mother, Elizabeth Lindback. In 1968, Ross And Emma incorporated CK Land & Livestock and Ross Copeland (grandson of Ross and Emma Meeks) has managed the Ranch since graduating from the University of Wyoming.