By Angelina Maynes
In the winter of 1875, Walter Vail wrote home from Tucson after traveling through the Arizona desert. He spoke of intense sun, cold nights and long stretches without drinking water.
Vail eventually went on to launch Empire Ranch, which would later become headquarters to one of the state’s most prominent cattle businesses.
More than a century later, Alison Bunting found herself piecing together Vail’s story through surviving letters, land documents and previously written histories.
Bunting, a retired librarian, was recruited to organize the Empire Ranch Foundation’s archives. As she worked through the records, she became interested in the history of Empire Ranch and the families connected to it.
Her efforts led to the Vail biography, Walter Vail: Arizona and California Rancher, released last year.
The book was originally a project started by Christine Shirley, wife of one of Vail’s grandsons. Shirley was a history teacher in Los Angeles. She was unable to finish the biography, due to illness.
Deep in the archives, Bunting came across Shirley’s unfinished, typewritten chapters.
Bunting used optical character recognition to convert the typed pages into digital documents. She then worked with living Vail family members to better understand Shirley’s plans for the biography and to help complete the story.
“I could see how she was using the letters to tell the story,” Bunting said, “And so the chapters where things were missing or hadn’t been quite completed, I was able to add to those.”
Before Vail became a prominent Arizona rancher, he had roots on the East Coast, moving between New Jersey and New York as his family grew and employment opportunities changed.
With talk of new opportunities in the West, he began looking for a different future.
Stories of silver and gold drew him to Virginia City, Nevada. From there, he began considering other opportunities, and looked to purchase land in Arizona, where he could raise sheep and cattle.
Bunting’s research into Vail’s letters offer a glimpse into his early impressions of Arizona, which were not entirely favorable after traveling through the unforgiving desert. Bunting said she was struck by the way he recorded his experiences.
“I loved how candid he was in expressing what he was encountering,” she said. “They also show his adventurous spirit and courage to take on what he did.”
The letters revealed that despite the difficult trip, Vail saw potential in the region. He found access to grasslands and drinking water that could easily support livestock, along with potential opportunities for economic growth along a developing railroad system.
In 1876, Vail and Herbert R. Hislop purchased the 160-acre Fish Ranch for $2,000, about $70,000 today.
“What they did, very strategically, is buy up as much land as they could, especially along the banks of the Cienega Creek,” Bunting said.
They purchased property from ranchers and homesteaders who were leaving the area. By acquiring land along the creek, Vail and his partners gained access to enough water to sustain their growing herd.
By 1880, the herd had expanded to more than 5,000 head of cattle, and the Southern Pacific Railroad had reached Tucson, connecting the region to broader markets.
Tombstone, which had grown rapidly during the silver boom, became an important market for cattle, and Vail was quick to take advantage of that. He supplied about 1,000 cattle a year to Tombstone. Cattle were also being sent to Indian reservations, where the U.S. government attempted to “settle” with the Apache natives, according to the biography.
In 1885, Vail became president of the Arizona Stock Growers Association, as Empire Ranch became one of the state’s leading cattle businesses. Pima County tax records show that the Empire Ranch and Cattle Company owned 61,160 acres of land in 1889, which would later grow to over 100,000 acres.
The letters and family records helped to fill in the details behind that growth, providing a glimpse into the lives of the people who worked the land. Bunting was able to finish the project with the help of fellow contributors Whitney Wilkinson, Rebecca Farnbach, and Jim Sappington.
“It enabled us to really envision what it was really like being in this very isolated area,” Bunting said.
For Bunting, the work is part of a broader effort to preserve the stories of the people who shaped the region. She and her husband moved from Los Angeles to the Sonoita area in search of a more rural lifestyle and darker skies for stargazing.
“For me, archives and historical research (are) very exciting,” Bunting said. “It’s wonderful when we have primary resources, like the letters that can tell you exactly what happened.”
