Northern Mississippi Rang Association (NMRA) was formed in the summer of 1999.

Objective of the organization was to establish a safe location for general shooting, hunter safety and law enforcement training.

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A depleted gravel pit, known as the Wilkinson Gravel Pit located 5 miles south west of Cass Lake was chosen.

In the fall of 2000 Cass County Environmental Service Dept. approved reclassification of the pit for use as a range and a lease agreement was entered into between Cass County and NMRA.

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The range was named Gordy Buchanan Memorial Range after a long time area conservation officer who conducted many hunter safely classes in that pit.

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With a matching grant from LCMR and the help of the Leech Lake Tribal Construction Crew, the initial dirt work of leveling the bottom of the pit and establishing the range was undertaken.

Once the leveling and basic dirt work was done, the installation of some 100 yard target backers and bench rests made the pit start looking like a shooting range.

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Then came a trap shooting area with an old used manual trap thrower. That has now progressed to a more modern automatic PAT trap with an active summer trap league.

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In 2004-2005 another matching grant was procured which made possible major dirt moving and berm building to be done, increasing the ranges capabilities to 200 yards, a handgun area and archery range, and some more improvement to the trap range. This project also added fire line shelters on the 100 yard ranges and handgun area. This improvement made possible the safe use of all ranges simultaneously without one interfering with the other.

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2009 saw the completion of NRA spec wall separating the handgun range to establish a dedicated 22 small bore, air rifle and plinking range