The Bell Ranch is a historic ranch in

Tucumcari, New Mexico Tucumcari (; ) is a city in and the county seat of Quay County, New Mexico, Quay County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 5,278 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Tucumcari was founded in 1901, two years before Quay Count ...

, United States of America.

Location

Lying along La Cinta Creek near the

Canadian River The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .Conchas Lake in

San Miguel County, New Mexico San Miguel County is a county in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 29,393. Its county seat is Las Vegas. San Miguel County comprises the Las Vegas Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in ...

about 30 miles (97 km) from

. The land originally totaled 656,000 acres (2,655 km²) of rolling grasslands bordered by red

rimrock Rimrock is the sheer rock wall at the upper edge of a plateau, canyon, or geological uplift. It may refer to either the rock formation or to the rock itself. Rimrock may be composed of almost any stone—basalt, gneiss, granite, sandstone, et ...

ed canyons and flat-topped mountains called

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by ...

s.Burt Rutherford
New Mexico’s Iconic Bell Ranch Changes Hands
'' Beef Magazine'', November 5, 2010 It now spans of land.

History

The Native Americans, Comanche, Kiowa and Apache, hunted the buffalo and ground their corn in well-placed grinding holes where they could scan the horizon for friend and foe. Pictographs carved in the red cliffs indicate the native Americans may well have been living there a long time before the 16th century. The ranch originated from a Mexican land grant held by Don Pablo Montoya in 1824, only three years after

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

had gained independence from

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. It also included the Baca Float No. 2. In 1875, it was named after the bell-shaped mountain on its land by then-owner Wilson Waddingham. Upon acquisition of

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of ''Santa Fe de Nuevo México ...

, the U.S. Cavalry established a temporary post at the Bell Ranch Headquarters for a time, using a part of the manager's house as a "map room" and post office while surveying the surrounding area.

Charles Goodnight Charles Goodnight (March 5, 1836 – December 12, 1929), also known as Charlie Goodnight, was a rancher in the American West. In 1955, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Early ...

of the Goodnight Cattle trail utilized one of the prominent mesas of the ranch, Gavilan, to navigate on the way to Colorado with his cattle herds.

Early ranch operations

The ensuing century brought a some pioneering individuals. One person, British-born John H. Culley, came as a young man to learn about ranching in northeastern New Mexico. He served as assistant manager in the late 19th century. Educated at Oxford, he recorded the ranch life in his book ''Cattle, Horses and Men''. He wrote "It is -for I know it- a world where the summers are long and hot and if in winter a flurry of snow comes, it is gone by noon; where things grow readily in the loose red soil and the rim rocks are vermilion. A world where few pines are to seen, icbut the hill and mesa sides are covered with juniper and the flats with mesquite, and the sunflowers grow higher than a man on horseback in the bottoms." Later, Albert K. Mitchell served as manager. His list of accomplishments included President of the American Hereford Cattle Breeders Association, an elected member of the New Mexico State House of Representatives, President of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association and a founder of the

American Quarter Horse Association The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA), based in Amarillo, Texas, is an international organization dedicated to the preservation, improvement and record-keeping of the American Quarter Horse. The association sanctions many competitive even ...

. Mitchell, busy with all these responsibilities, used a small plane to commute to all his activities. He built a hangar and runway at the Bell which stands today. He was one of the first to use airplane flight to commute for agricultural pursuits. In the 1930s, the ranch was acquired by Guy Waggoner, who built the 10,300-square-foot

hacienda An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...

on the ranch. His two children sold the ranch after his death. In 1947, the ranch went through a significant re-division with the Bell Ranch headquarters, the name, and brand being retained with approximately 130,000 acres (526 km²) near the center of the Montoya grant and five other portions sectioned off. This was purchased by Harriet Keeney of Connecticut and her family.

Present day

In more modern times, the Bell Ranch has been known for the quality of beef cattle produced and the pioneering concepts that went into those herds. The concepts of "beef production testing" were laid down at the Bell under the guidance of longtime manager

George F. Ellis George Forbes Ellis was a cattleman, pioneer in the field of beef cattle production, and a published writer. Born in Portales, New Mexico, Portales, New Mexico Territory on May 11, 1903, he graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural College (now K ...

(manager 1946 to 1970). Over time, the purebred

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...

stock were measured and selected to improve desirable inherited traits. The proven performance advances were significant and groundbreaking. Ellis would be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Beef Cattle Industry and honors from a host of other established organizations for his work. In 1970, ownership of the largest single chunk—so large it has its own Zip Code, 88441—was acquired by William N. Lane II of Chicago, chairman and CEO of publicly traded General Binding Corp., a maker of office supplies and equipment. Further purchases of the original grant land have fleshed out the holding to its present size of . After Lane died in a 1978 car accident on the ranch, it was owned by his five children through a trust. His son Jeff died in a plane accident on the ranch in 2007. In 2010, the ranch was acquired by

Silver Spur Ranches Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical cond ...

, a ranching company owned by

John Malone John Carl Malone (born March 7, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman, landowner and philanthropist. He was chief executive officer (CEO) of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), a cable and media giant, for twenty-four years from 1973 to 1996. ...

. The Bell Ranch stands at of the original of a century and a half ago. The white faced red Hereford cattle of Ellis' tenure are gone. The present day herds feature of a cross consisting of the original Hereford,

Red Angus The Red Angus is an international breed of beef cattle characterised by a reddish-brown coat colour. It derives from the Scottish Aberdeen Angus population and, apart from the coat colour, is identical to it. Red Angus are registered separatel ...

Gelbvieh Gelbvieh (, German for "yellow cattle") is a cattle breed originating in several Franconian districts of Bavaria, Germany in the mid-eighteenth century. It was originally a triple-purpose breed, used for milk, beef and draught power; the mode ...

Brahman In Hinduism, ''Brahman'' ( sa, ब्रह्मन्) connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality in the universe.P. T. Raju (2006), ''Idealistic Thought of India'', Routledge, , page 426 and Conclusion chapter part X ...

to create the "Red Bell" herd. The ranch is home to a private airport known as the Waggoner Airport.Airnav: Waggoner Airport
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Art and literature

Over the centuries, the Bell Ranch has attracted many notable artists and writers with its beauty and unique qualities. Canadian artist

Robert Lougheed Robert Lougheed (May 27, 1910 – June 3, 1982) was a Canada-born American artist who has specialized in images of the American West. He was born and raised on a farm in Massey, Ontario, Canada. He became an illustrator for mail-order catalogues ...

visited the ranch numerous times taking inspiration from the horses, people and places to create a body of work recognized by the

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 American West, Western and Native Americans in the United States, American Indian art works and Artifact (archaeology), ar ...

. In the 1940s, famed photographer

Harvey Caplin Harvey, Harveys or Harvey's may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Harvey'' (play), a 1944 play by Mary Chase about a man befriended by an invisible anthropomorphic rabbit * Harvey Awards ("Harveys"), one of the most important awards ...

took images in black and white. Some of these have been used by the Stetson Hat Company for promotion since that time as the quintessential western iconography. In 1975, a film called ''Cowboy Heaven'' was filmed by David Ellis about the true western cowboy featuring the ranch and the then current cowboys of the Bell. The '' American Quarter Horse Journal'' has published well illustrated articles about the ranch on several occasions as had the ''

Western Horseman ''Western Horseman'', a monthly magazine published by the magazine division of Morris Communications, was first published in January 1936. It features articles on Western riding, the breeding and care of horses, horse training and tack, and ranchin ...

'' magazine. George Ellis wrote about his experiences in the book, ''The Bell Ranch As I Knew It'', covering the Bell operations during his tenure. The book itself won the '74 Wrangler Award for Best Western Book of the Year from the

. He wrote "The Bell is a good ranch - one of the best in the Southwest. Cattle people and college people from all over the world came to visit there." He lists countries represented by these frequent visitors from an impressive five continents. He concludes "The demands and privileges of the Bell touched all our lives - and left them richer."

References

External links

Panoramic photo of Bell Ranch c. 1914
in the Library of Congress American Memory collection
Silver Spur Ranches
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in San Miguel County, New Mexico Ranches on the National Register of Historic Places in New Mexico Ranches in New Mexico History of San Miguel County, New Mexico National Register of Historic Places in San Miguel County, New Mexico