Establishment Empire Ranch is located on the eastern slope of the
Santa Rita Mountains in Cienega Valley, fifty-two miles southeast of
Tucson and about north of
Sonoita. The property overlooks a shallow depression called Empire Gulch, through which a spring-fed rivulet bordered by cottonwoods courses eastward to Cienega Creek. The surrounding meadows are "thickly covered" with
sacaton and
salt grass. Tucson businessman Edward Nye Fish first occupied the site of the ranch in 1871, but it is uncertain whether or not he built the original four-room
adobe house and corral, which may have already been there when he arrived. On August 22, 1876, an
Easterner named
Walter Vail and his
English business partner, Herbert R. Hislop, purchased Empire Ranch and its 612 head of cattle from Fish and his partner, Simon Silverberg, who had acquired the 160-acre tract only two months earlier from Fish's brother-in-law, William Wakefield, at a price of
$500. Fish and Silverberg wanted $3,800 for the ranch and cattle; but to expedite the sale, they settled on a considerably lower price of $1,174. Vail and Hislop immediately began expanding their holdings in the area by acquiring new lands and improving the ranch's infrastructure. In its heyday, Empire controlled of rangeland between the Santa Rita,
Rincon,
Whetstone, and
Huachuca Mountains. By 1951, Frank Boice and his family assumed full control of the property. Around the same time, the ranch was featured in several
Western films starring many of
Hollywood's most famous actors, such as
John Wayne,
Gregory Peck and
Steve McQueen. In 1969, Empire Ranch was sold to the Gulf American Corporation for a proposed real estate development and later resold to the Anamax Mining Company for mining and water potential. None of these developments materialized, and the ranch continues to work with cattle. In the 1980s, the owners began to restore the buildings to their original state and in 1988 the ranch became public land administered by the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The Empire Ranch Foundation was established as a private
non-profit organization in 1997 to work with the BLM to develop private support to preserve the buildings and enhance the educational and recreational opportunities it offers to the public. In 2000,
Congress combined Empire Ranch and the surrounding ranchland with the
Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. On April 25–26, 2017, the
Sawmill Fire, which had been started two days earlier by a
gender reveal party, significantly impacted the Empire Ranch, though fortunately its historic buildings were not damaged by the flames thanks to the efforts of firefighters. During the incident, the fire came as close as 50 feet to the buildings. ==Gallery==