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Photo, Print, Drawing Empire Ranch, East Empire Ranch Road, three miles east of the intersection with State Highway 83 (between mile markers 39 and 40), Greaterville, Pima County, AZ Las Cienegas National Conservation Area

[ Data Pages from Survey HALS AZ-19  ]

About this Item

Title

  • Empire Ranch, East Empire Ranch Road, three miles east of the intersection with State Highway 83 (between mile markers 39 and 40), Greaterville, Pima County, AZ

Other Title

  • Las Cienegas National Conservation Area

Names

  • Historic American Landscapes Survey, creator
  • Vail, Walter L.
  • Boice, Frank
  • Anamax Mining Corporation
  • U.S. Bureau of Land Management
  • Empire Ranch Foundation
  • Chiricahua Ranches Company
  • Sanford, Don Alonzo
  • Fish, Edward Nye
  • Gardner, Thomas
  • Hislop, Herbert
  • Chiricahua Apache
  • Dojaquez, Henry
  • Korte, Gerald
  • Gudgell, Charles
  • Boice, Mary
  • Boice, Poncho
  • Boice, Bob
  • Greenway, Jack
  • GAC Properties
  • Boice, Steve
  • Donaldson, John
  • Kolbe, James T.
  • DeConcini, Dennis
  • Sonoita Valley Planning Partnership
  • Cienega Watershed Partnership
  • Bell, Sam
  • Vail, Margaret
  • Harvey, John
  • Vail, William Banning
  • Chorover, Gina, historian
  • Erickson, Helen, historian
  • Pinto, Robin, historian
  • Alkadi, Abrar Abdullah H., researcher
  • Estrada, Jessica Paola, researcher
  • Havelka, Heather Leigh, researcher
  • Hornby, Rachelle, researcher
  • Lagunas, Armando, researcher
  • Lavely, Nicole, researcher
  • Miller, Gabrielle, researcher
  • McKinney, Kathryn Elizabeth, researcher
  • Newman, Taira Lynn, researcher
  • Parraga, Chelsea, researcher
  • Vande-Stouwe, Genna Renee, researcher
  • Stevens, Christopher M., transmitter
  • McPartland, Mary, transmitter

Created / Published

  • Documentation compiled after 2000

Headings

  • -  grasslands
  • -  ranch houses
  • -  ranches
  • -  cattle ranches
  • -  barns
  • -  barnyards
  • -  adobe buildings
  • -  corrals
  • -  trees
  • -  agricultural land
  • -  agriculture
  • -  airfields
  • -  orchards
  • -  water tanks
  • -  reservoirs
  • -  residential gardens
  • -  swimming pools
  • -  fountains
  • -  livestock loading chutes
  • -  windmills
  • -  irrigation canals
  • -  outbuildings
  • -  gasoline pumps
  • -  troughs
  • -  chicken houses
  • -  cowboys
  • -  cows
  • -  Arizona--Pima County--Greaterville

Latitude / Longitude

  • 31.785602,-110.642214

Notes

  • -  First Place Winner - 2016 HALS Challenge: Documenting National Register Listed Landscapes
  • -  Significance: The Empire Ranch represents one of the most successful, long-lived, cattle ranching enterprises in the Southwest. Located in the ecologically rich Cienega Valley in Southeast Arizona, ranch owners made full use of, but husbanded well, all of its natural resources grass, water and soils in support of their livestock business. The landscape retains a remarkable degree of integrity of its natural resources and its built structures and features. Those ecological and historic values were recently recognized by Congress when the landscape was designated as the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in 2000. Now administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the Empire Ranch landscape still functions as a working cattle ranch and its historic headquarters are being stabilized and preserved. The story of the Empire Ranch is inextricably linked to the availability of the high desert grasslands and the marshlands of the Cienega Valley. The original 160-acre homestead claim was sited near Empire Gulch, a tributary of Cienega Creek, an essential perennial water source in the early 1870s. The economic and financial success of the Empire Ranch was dependent upon the ingenuity and determination of two ranching families Walter L Vail and relatives and, later, Frank Boice and his descendants. Walter Vail expanded the original homestead through a series of strategic acquisitions of land parcels and water rights and effectively secured control of several hundred thousand acres to support over 40,000 head of cattle. Possession and control of these valuable lands and water sources allowed the Vail family to protect the ecological integrity of their most important natural resources soil and grass when other ranchers regularly overused and ultimately damaged theirs. Like other entrepreneurs of the time, they invested in other resources and land uses. The discovery of silver at the Total Wreck Mine provided additional financial support for the Vails' cattle empire. Frank Boice and his family acquired the Empire Ranch in 1928. They used the superior grasslands to support their purebred Hereford cattle for which the Boices were known throughout the Southwest. Both the Vails and the Boices harvested hay from the Cienega Creek floodplain; they also used those rich soils to grow grains for cattle feed as well as fruits and vegetables. Water availability and management were critical to a successful ranch and agricultural operation. Today the Empire landscape contains many storage and transport structures, historic and modern, designed to provide water to important activity sites. In the 1940s, the Boice family began to divest portions of the ranch; finally, in 1969 the property was sold to a residential development corporation that planned to build a large housing project. With the economic downturn of the 1970s, the property changed hands yet again. Anamax Mining Corporation foresaw a lucrative mining venture by combining an adjacent mineral body with the Ranch's extensive water rights. Throughout ownerships by alternative corporations, cattle ranching continued on the landscape. By the 1980s, the surrounding community had come to recognize the historic and ecological importance of the property. A series of land exchanges enabled the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to acquire the historic ranch. The Empire Ranch Foundation was created to preserve and maintain the ranch headquarters. Under the BLM and its numerous federal, state and local partners, the century and a half of environmental respect continues with active ranching and careful oversight to preserve natural and cultural resources while providing opportunities for public recreation.
  • -  Survey number: HALS AZ-19
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1870-1880 Initial Construction
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1892 Subsequent Work
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1929 Subsequent Work
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1951 Subsequent Work
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1969 Subsequent Work
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1988 Subsequent Work
  • -  Building/structure dates: 2000 Subsequent Work
  • -  National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 75000354

Medium

  • Data Page(s): 61

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HALS AZ-19

Source Collection

  • Historic American Landscapes Survey (Library of Congress)

Repository

Control Number

  • az0666

Rights Advisory

Online Format

  • pdf

Rights & Access

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Obtaining Copies

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Historic American Landscapes Survey, Creator, Walter L Vail, Frank Boice, Anamax Mining Corporation, U.S. Bureau Of Land Management, Empire Ranch Foundation, Chiricahua Ranches Company, et al. Empire Ranch, East Empire Ranch Road, three miles east of the intersection with State Highway 83 between mile markers 39 and 40, Greaterville, Pima County, AZ. Greaterville Pima County Arizona, 2000. translateds by Stevens, Christopher M.Mitter, and Mcpartland, Marymitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/az0666/.

APA citation style:

Historic American Landscapes Survey, C., Vail, W. L., Boice, F., Anamax Mining Corporation, U.S. Bureau Of Land Management, Empire Ranch Foundation [...] Vande-Stouwe, G. R. (2000) Empire Ranch, East Empire Ranch Road, three miles east of the intersection with State Highway 83 between mile markers 39 and 40, Greaterville, Pima County, AZ. Greaterville Pima County Arizona, 2000. Stevens, C. M. M. & McPartland, M., transs Documentation Compiled After. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/az0666/.

MLA citation style:

Historic American Landscapes Survey, Creator, et al. Empire Ranch, East Empire Ranch Road, three miles east of the intersection with State Highway 83 between mile markers 39 and 40, Greaterville, Pima County, AZ. trans by Stevens, Christopher M.Mitter, and Mcpartland, Marymitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/az0666/>.