Empire Ranch Vail left his family's
Plainfield, New Jersey house in the middle of 1875 to pursue riches in the
West. He worked for a few months in
Virginia City, Nevada as a mine's timekeeper, but in November he wrote of his intention to get involved in
Arizona's sheep business. He, along with an Englishman named Herbert R. Hislop, then purchased the
Empire Ranch along with its 612 cattle on August 22, 1876. The purchase from Edward Nye Fish and Simon Silverberg cost $1,174 at the time and was only . Vail had met Hislop for the first time in August of that year, at the Lick House in
San Francisco. Vail also became the main shareholder of the Empire Land & Cattle Company, which was formed in 1882.
Politics Vail additionally served in the House of Representatives on the
10th Arizona Territorial Legislature for two years, starting in 1879. He was one of five representatives from
Pima County. There, he proposed the creation of
Apache County in the northeast. In 1884, Vail was elected to the Arizona Stock Growers Association, where he introduced many laws relating to cattle farming.
California Vail moved his main operations to California in the late 1880s due to a long drought in Arizona. He started leasing Californian land mainly in
Temecula Valley, but established his headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. By this time, he had already bought four ranches: the northern half of
Rancho Little Temecula,
Rancho Pauba,
Rancho Santa Rosa, and
Rancho Temecula. Later, Vail would own over surrounding the city of
Temecula. He also leased
Santa Catalina Island and
Santa Rosa Island in 1892 and 1901, respectively. Vail, along with Carroll W. Gates and J.V. Vickers, set up the Panhandle Pasture Company, which bought about in
Sherman County, Texas and
Beaver County, Oklahoma. ==Personal life==