Stewart's Ninety-Six Ranch - 150 Years of History What has long been known as the Ninety-Six Ranch of Paradise Valley, Nevada was founded by German immigrant William Stock in 1864. It started as a simple homestead, and through the years, has grown into one of Nevada's most iconic ranching operations. (The William Stock Farming Company, Stewart's Ninety-Six Ranch) Today, 150 years later, it is still owned and operated by the 4th and 5th generations of William Stock's direct descendants. The Founding Years, 1864-1910 The rebuilt home where William Stock was born in 1837, Exten Germany Friedrick Wilhelm Stock, who was born in Exten, Germany in 1837, founded what is now called the Ninety-Six Ranch in Paradise Valley, Nevada. He was the eldest of eight children and was apprenticed to a cobbler at fourteen but abandoned the pursuit after two years and came to America. He arrived in New York in 1853 at the tender age of 16. He proceeded to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked as a cooper's helper. In 1857 he was drawn to California by the gold rush, traveling from New Orleans around Cape Horn to San Francisco, bypassing the mountain West where he would eventually make his home. He probably took the English form of his name at about the time of his arrival in the United States. In California, Stock worked in the gold fields on the northern reaches of the Sacramento River. He was not terribly successful and soon took a job with a stage line. In 1860 he bought two wagons and twelve oxen and formed his own freight company. During this period he first met George Carrol (sometimes spelled Carroll or Carrel) from Petersburg, Virginia, who later would become his partner in Paradise Valley. The freight company hauled supplies from Red Bluff, the northernmost steamship landing on the Sacramento, to mines in southwestern Idaho (Silver City). One southern sweeping route that he used in order to avoid conflict with Indians passed near Paradise Valley, Nevada, where Stock saw promising farmland. He homesteaded in the Valley in 1864. He was one of the first, if not the very first permanent white settler of the Valley. Some early settlers in Paradise Valley faced Indian raids until about 1868, with one particularly severe outbreak in 1865; however, William Stock's relationship with Native Americans in this early period are always described as charitable and positive. There is no evidence that Stock ever displaced local Indians and a 1942 article in Pacific Stockman, based on interviews with family members, reports Stock's handling of the 1865 uprising: "He stayed on his place and when the hungry (possibly starving) Indians came, he killed a beef, roasted it and made friends with the Indians. They never gave him an trouble after that." (Mann, Range. "Ranching in Paradise." Pacific Stockman VIII, 10; October 1942, p. 8). But others in the valley were not so sanguine and the cavalry fort Camp Winfield Scott was established in 1866. The role of Native Americans on the ranch in later years was important. Their influence is still seen today in the way Fred has taught Patrice to rope and cut cattle as well as the conservative (land friendly) levels of farming and grazing we do on the ranchlands. Stock's first dwelling was a sod house and the farm's first product a crop of grain. Supplies were brought from Unionville, Nevada, a distance of 150 miles. Later, after the railroad reached Winnemucca, forty miles distant, Stock was able to obtain lumber and build a small wood house. Fort Scott provided Stock with a local market for grain and meat; the establishment of Fort McDermitt just across the mountains provided him with contracts to supply firewood and poles. Stock's grandson Leslie J. "Les" Stewart once said that he had seen a mountain cabin deep in the Santa Rosa Mountains and the remains of a sled he believes his grandfather used during his wood-gathering expeditions. Stock and Carrol formed a partnership in 1866, adding horses to the grain and cattle already being produced. Acquisitions led to the growth of the holdings, including Stock's 1883 buyout of his partner (Carrol)(who went south to Tombstone, Arizona where he founded the town's first bank). Other holdings, some quite distant from the present home ranch, were bought and sold through the years. The 1881 lithograph of Stock's ranch that appeared in Myron Angel's 1881 History of Nevada with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (Oakland, California: Thompson and West) shows a diversified operation that raised and sold sheep, hogs, horses, cattle, and grain. For many westerners, such diversity and the inclusion of cash crops define a farm rather than a ranch. A ranch would sell exclusively livestock. In 1879 Stock went back to Germany and married Wilhelmina Christina Wahague (or Wahagen or Wahaugen) from Strücken, a village very near Exten. They returned to Nevada early the next year, bringing with them three of Stock's younger sisters and one younger brother. Six children were born to William and Wilhemina during the 1880s, four of whom survived: William F. (1881), Minnie (1882), Elizabeth (1884), and Edith (1886). Early family history describes the extensive kitchen garden, flock of chickens, and milk cows overseen by Wilhelmina, who traded excess produce, butter, and eggs at the store. The family also raised two hundred ducks and geese, gathered the down for feather beds, and sold poultry to Chinese laborers at the nearby mines. In the 1880s and 1890s, Stock invested in a bank in Winnemucca and a flourmill in the valley, and helped form and build the First Methodist Church of Paradise Valley. He was active in civic affairs and Republican politics. He aided his brother, Heinrich Edward, and three sisters, Louisa Wilhelmia, Justine Carolena, and Louisa Pauline Sophie, in their immigration to America. All four settled in Paradise Valley; Ed started a ranch (which remained in Ed Stock's family until the 1960's and is now owned by Pete and Kathi Marvel) Ed's descendants (Elizabeth Stock Chabot and her children/grandchildren/greatgrandchildren) remain residents of the Valley, Wilhelmina married Henry Kirchner, Carolena married Henry Knieke (one generation later, a daughter also known as Carolena married into the Miller family and descendants of that union remain in the Valley and around Humboldt County) and Louisa married Robert Schwartz and bore him 14 children (descendants of her youngest son Rudolf remain in the Valley on the Schwartz Keystone Ranch). William Stock and his younger siblings form the basis for Paradise Valley's oldest resident families and ranches. After 1900, other immigrants moved to Paradise Valley including talented Italian stone workers and Basque herders. William Stock suffered a debilitating stroke in the early 1890's and died on November 25, 1898. After her husband's death, Wilhelmina ran the operation with the help of her children and nephew, William Huck, until her death in 1910. She was known as a generous and tough lady. By the time of Wilhelmina Stock's death, the outfit nolonger raised cash crops and limited its sales to livestock--cattle,sheep,and horses--and the operation could now properly be called a ranch. But Wilhelmina felt that Stock's first love had been farming and in the face of some family protests, she incorporated the operation as the William Stock Farming Company. According to daughter Minnie Grotsch's records, the ranch's holdings at the time of her death included 3,000 cattle, 6,000 sheep, 1,000 horses, and 17,560 acres of land. The name Ninety-Six Ranch has been in practical use in Paradise Valley since the early 1900's; but, the name William Stock Farming Company never really caught on in practical use around the Valley. The Ranch After 1910 Three of William Stock's children ultimately inherited the ranch; middle daughter Elizabeth died of a brain tumor in 1904, and upon Wilhemina's death in 1910 the property passed to William F., Edith, and Minnie. William F. was badly injured in a runaway horse accident in the early 1930's and this coupled with a lifestyle that included too much drink and the wrong kind of women, caused his premature death from advanced syphilis and other excesses in a California Sanitorium in 1936. This vested the ranch's ownership in his two sisters and their families. Minnie married into the prominent German-American Grotsch family and moved to San Francisco and then Sacramento, leaving the actual operation in the hands of Edith and her husband, Fred B. Stewart. Stewart was a native Californian, raised in the Owens Valley near Independence and educated at University of Nevada Reno. He was a practiced water engineer when he met and married Edith. Fred B. Stewart and his wife, William Stock's youngest daughter Edith were the ranch's on-site managers from 1915 to the 1950s. While Fred was known as the official manager, Edith was also an important influence on the operation. Stock's grandson, Les Stewart wrote about his parents, "I believe the thirties were much worse than the earliest days, requiring more fortitude, devotion, and hard work (for no financial reimbursement) than any time in the ranch's long history. My parents, Fred and Edith deserve as much credit for keeping it together as the real early-day people." During this era-between the World Wars--the ranch specialized more and more in beef and became less diversified. Interest in horses continued, however, and saddle and work horses won prizes in Nevada competitions. Capital improvements after the year 1900 included the construction of outbuildings and line camps, notably the handsome stone structures built by the Italian immigrant stonemason Tony Ramasco. These include the ranch's stone barns, equipment barn, Bradshaw and Hardscrabble cabins. Third generation Les Stewart was born in 1920, and by the age of nineteen was fully involved in the ranch, spending spring, summer, and fall on the range and running the roundup wagon. He attended the College of Agriculture at the University of Nevada in Reno, but his disaffection with scientific experts and impractical authority figures soon manifested itself. In a 1982 letter nominating her husband to the Nevada Cattlemen's Association 100,000 [Horseback] Mile Club, his wife, Marie, wrote: "In the spring of 1940 [Leslie] decided that higher education was not for him. Near the end of the semester, while attending a class in ranch management, the professor was discussing the merits of a tidy farmstead. "When piling debris to be burned, don't stack it too close to the barn as you might burn the barn down." Leslie thought about this for a while and decided his education was complete and school was over as far as he was concerned. He packed his saddle and other belongings and headed back to the ranch and never returned to the college." Les Stewart, like many sons of agriculture, was exempt from the draft during World War II. He stayed home and helped run the ranch. This was a decision that he always regretted, for while the ranch's production of beef benefited the war effort, he longed to be directly involved. The war years and the postwar era brought more changes to the operation. Improved roads and greater use of trucks reduced the amount of horseback work. Ranch workers were fewer in number and less specialized. Les says he feels the era marked the demise of the true buckaroo, the man who only worked from the saddle. During and after WWII Les Stewart took on more and more operational management of the ranch. Not only did he run the outside buckaroos, but the inside crews as well. Minnie Grotsch family members continued involvement in the ranch by managing the books and also coming to ride and help in the summers. Stock grandson Bud Grotsch was a leading proponent of modernization and bought the ranch's first tractor for Les Stewart to operate. Bud's sister Barbara Grotsch Binford came each summer and helped ride and cook for crews on the ranch. Barbara's daughter, Stock great granddaughter Christine (Grotsch) Binford DeYoung spent all of her growing-up summers at the ranch and continues to live in Paradise Valley 6 months of each year with her husband Joel at their Hinkey Summit home. Their son Tim is also a fifth generation William Stock descendant. Les Stewart's parents died within six years of each other. Fred died in 1959, the year in which Les and Marie Stewart were married and their son (fourth generation) Fredrick William Stewart was born. During the early sixties Les and Marie built their new house while Les' mother Edith continued living in the two-story main house. Also during the early 1960's Les Stewart adopted Marie's two daughters from her previous marriage (Deborah and Darlene), and the family became officially complete. Edith died in 1965, leaving Les in full operational control of the ranch. Les's cousins--Minnie Grotsch's children--still owned a share, which the Stewart Family bought in 1979, using the event as the occasion to officially change the name of the operation from the William Stock Farming Company to the Ninety-Six Ranch, the name used in practical operation since the 1920's and the name still used today. The Ninety-Six Ranch - 1993 to Present In the fall of 1993, current ranch owner/manager Fred Stewart (great grandson of William Stock) welcomed his new wife Kris not with a traditional honeymoon, but instead with 150 head of red Saler cows and heifers from the Wright Ranch near Tuscarora, NV. Beefmaster and Saler bulls were added to the mix and Ninety-Six Ranch produced a brand new kind of calf crop in 1994. The French-bred Saler cattle were beautiful, but their "continental dispositions" made them nearly impossible to manage and the Saler experiment was short-lived. The family exchanged the "Rojo Diablos" in 1998 for the more reliable commercial-bred Hereford/Angus cross cows. (Black Ballies) Since that time, the ranch has grown in a several important ways. The 1997 birth of fifth generation Stock great, great granddaughter Patrice Marie Stewart. The passing of Fred's dad Les Stewart in early 2006. His loss truly marked the end of the "last of the old timers" on the ranch. His influence on our operation is felt everyday in everything we do. He is our touchstone and our "heart". Today, Fred Stewart, with the help of his wife Kris and daughter Patrice manages the ranch. Mom Marie continues to live on the ranch and enjoy her family, dogs and ranch life. The ranch's new cattle herd has grown to nearly 800 mother cows - all commercial Hereford and Angus - using high quality Bell Hereford & Shaw Angus bulls to produce some of the finest all-English commercial calves in the Industry. Fifth generation Patrice Stewart is now a young woman who owns and manages her own small herd of top commercial beef cattle on the ranch, actively helps her parents on the ranch and is involved in all ranch decisions, competes in youth and high school rodeo, FFA leadership and plans a career and life managing the very same Paradise Valley ranch that her great, great grandfather William Stock founded as a simple homestead in 1864. Patrice Stewart - 16, April 2014 For more information on our current operation, click here For more history on the ranch memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/buckaroos Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada and a Study of the Ninety-Six Ranch |
Fred W Stewart |