In the late 1940s and early ’50s, Western Livestock Journal organized “beef cattle tours,” primarily in California, to share operating practices on successful ranches and introduce new sources of registered breeding stock. In September 1949, the tour came to Arizona for the first time and spent a day in the Patagonia/Sonoita area, visiting five ranches. Thirty participants from California and Nevada on the cattle tour bus were joined or met by many Arizona cattle growers along the way. Alex MacDonald, former head of the Animal Husbandry Department at the California Agricultural College and western field representative for the American Hereford Association, provided expert commentary.
The first stop was the Greene Cattle Co. in the San Rafael Valley, where the manager, Marshall Hartman, introduced their purebred registered Herefords. The Greene Cattle Co. was established in 1903 when William Greene purchased Colin Cameron’s San Rafael ranch. Herefords have been the preferred cattle since Cameron’s time.
Next came the nearby Heady & Ashburn ranch, where co-owner Marshall Ashburn noted that 90% of their ranch work was done with trucks. Tom Heady, who for 40 years managed the Greene Cattle Co., began building this ranch in about 1914 by purchasing land adjacent to his father’s homestead. In 1929, in partnership with his son-in-law Marshall, the ranch began to focus on registered Hereford cattle.
The last stop in the valley was the Vaca Ranch near Patagonia, whose stock included Brahman and crossbred females. Calves born on the Vaca were finished in California. The Vaca was created by Clyde McPherson starting in the 1920s through the purchase of land owned by early homesteaders including the Gatlin brothers. It was named the Vaca Ranch after McPherson’s death and was owned by Bill Janss of Los Angeles at the time of this visit.
Harold Thurber, owner of the Singing Valley Ranch north of Sonoita, hosted a lunch for tour participants and more than 300 guests. Arizona Gov. Dan Garvey was in attendance, and everyone enjoyed the chuckwagon lunch served under a great tent. Thurber’s registered Hereford bulls were on display in the nearby corrals. As reported in the September 1949 issue of the Arizona Cattlelog magazine (page 62), MacDonald noted that “men like Harold Thurber are making a wonderful contribution to the cattle industry and to the State of Arizona. These cattle have the natural fleshing, the conformation and the quality we want to see.” Thurber began ranching in Sonoita in 1932 and assembled a ranch that included more than 1,400 deeded acres and 10,000 acres of leased land.
The last stop was the Empire Ranch, which focused on breeding commercial Herefords “that are a little more compact, rugged, but smooth, cows that will give plenty of milk to raise good, quick growing, sturdy calves that will in turn go into the pens and do a good job for the man that feeds them.” The Empire Ranch was founded in 1876 and the Boice family purchased it in 1928. Frank Boice, owner/manager, also described his innovative mesquite control operations: “There is no way to stop mesquite now except by artificial methods. When it is removed the grass increases two to three times,” he was quoted as saying in the same issue of Arizona Cattlelog (pages 63-64).
During the 1949 tour, several ranches reported sales of their stock and the publicity in local newspapers no doubt raised the visibility of their offerings. Western Livestock Journal found that the tour was so popular and successful that they scheduled a return trip in 1950. Two changes were made in the 1950 schedule: Lunch was sponsored by the Heady & Ashburn Ranch, and the Empire Ranch did not participate.
Alison Bunting can be contacted at alisbunting@gmail.com.