Historic Empire Ranch

Empire Ranch was established in the 1870s by Edward Nye Fish on 160 acres with a four-room adobe ranch house and corral. In 1876, Walter L. Vail and Herbert R. Hislop purchased the ranch and expanded the original land holdings, livestock, and buildings. The Vail family operated the ranch until 1928, when a partnership of the Boice, Gates, and Johnson families purchased it. Frank Boice and his family lived on and managed Empire Ranch for 47 years, and in addition to ranching they hosted Hollywood production companies filming classic western movies. In 1969, Empire Ranch was sold to Gulf American Corporation for a proposed real estate development, and in 1974 it was resold to Anamax Mining Company for mining and water potential, but neither development materialized. In 1988, a series of land exchanges placed the property into public ownership under the administration of the Bureau of Land Management, a division of the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 2000, the U.S. Congress officially designated these 42,000 acres as the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. Cattle operations continue there under Bureau of Land Management lease arrangements.

Arizona · United States