07 Dec Cleveland Ranch, Spring Valley
Cleveland Ranch, established in 1899, is located in North Spring Valley in White Pine County. Large trees can be noted in the panorama, lining the road into the old ranch area. The verdant valley, once the home of the largest fenced ranch in Nevada, has abundant underground aquifers that may one day be drained to satisfy the thirst of the residents of Las Vegas far to the south.
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Selma (Sissy) Baxter
Posted at 06:16h, 25 JuneMy father Ruben (Sotero) Lazaro and my uncle Carmelo Lazaro worked on the Cleveland Ranch for John Chachas.
My father also worked the Delta Ut feed lot for John Chachas and we would go back forth between the two places. As a child my brother I loved going to the ranch. I would play with a girl named Susie Garcia. I would like to go back and see it one day.
Daniel Garcia
Posted at 15:24h, 20 JanuaryClevelan Ranch is where I gre up until I went into High School in Ely nevada. My Dad Andres Garcia an Uncle Frank Garcia worked at the ranch for John Chahchas and Family. I can remember all the hard long days cutting the Hay and helping with the Ranch during the summer. Winters were cold and we had only one school. 1 teacher who taught 1-8 th grade. It was a good place to grow up and when Chachas sold the Ranch we moved to Ely. I have been to the Ranch and it look so diffrent now. I do want ti thank all the ranchers in Spring Valley that were so friendly and always willing to help/ A few I can remember is Yellens Family, Rogers Family, Heckthorn Family. Eldridge Family, Robinson Family, anf Kazier Family. If I missed anybody I am sorry . God bless Spring Valley . I retired out of the Army and now live in Colorado Springs Colorado.
Stephen Andersen
Posted at 12:18h, 15 SeptemberI was wondering if any of you knew, whether Cleve Creek was named after the Cleveland family? What else do you know about the creeks history?
Elizabeth Chachas Masek
Posted at 08:28h, 24 JanuaryMy name is Elizabeth Chachas Masek. When I was born my family was living on the Cleveland Ranch. My grandfather, John Chachas, bought the ranch in 1948. I am currently doing a historiography of the Cleveland Ranch and would appreciate any information or documents that relate to it or any of the people who lived there. I am particularly interested in Abner Coburn Cleveland and Katherine Parker Cleveland, his wife. They started the ranch in approximately 1868 and I am interested in tracking down any distant relatives who might have letters or other documents pertaining to their lives.
Doug Youngfield
Posted at 14:54h, 17 September“During the mid-1860s, Abner C. Cleveland and Daniel Murphy became partners in a cattle venture. Cleveland borrowed $50,000 from Murphy to enter the partnership, and the two stocked the new ranch with Hereford cattle. Within a few short years, the ranch was the most successful in Spring Valley. Cleveland married Kate Peters in 1868 and two years later was elected to the Nevada State Senate. Murphy died in 1882, and Cleveland took over complete control of the ranch. A post office opened on July 24, 1882, and mail was brought from Gold Hill, Utah, twice a week by Tom Mulliner. The post office closed in 1905 but reopened from 1917 to 1924. Cleveland was an important man on the political scene in Nevada. In 1890 he ran for the United States Senate but lost the election to William Stewart. In 1902 he ran for governor but lost again, this time to Governor John Sparks. He died the following year.
After Cleveland’s death, his widow took control of the ranch. William Neil McGill, for whom the smelting town McGill was named, made numerous attempts to buy the Cleveland empire, which led to a bitter feud. During this period, Cleveland was the primary stop on the Aurum-Osceola stage, which ran twice a week. In 1909 Mrs. Cleveland sold the ranch to Thomas Judd, a Mormon bishop from Lund, for $100,000. She believed Judd when he said he would not resell to McGill. But only months later Judd deeded the land to McGill. Mrs. Cleveland vowed that she would kill McGill for his underhanded deed, but she never carried out her threat. Cleveland Ranch is still in operation today, and many of the original buildings remain. A few cowboys who died while working at Cleveland are buried in the Osceola Cemetery, including Decknos Kathan, a Canadian who died on March 24, 1899. One of the interesting aspects of the Cleveland site are the huge trees, about fifty of them, that line the road to the old ranch.”
(Credit goes to the above website)
Dave Shaver
Posted at 17:29h, 13 AprilIn the summer of 1950 I was hired on for the summer as a ranch hand. We “bucked” bales of hay and stacked them for the winter. Grass was cut in several fields for silage, and dumped in a large cement lined pit. Horse drawn flatbed hay wagons were used for hauling the hay to the stacking areas and the silage pit. At the time there were around 700 head of cattle distributed in several large fenced areas. With a total area of 10,000 acres, and plenty of well-watered and rich grazing areas the ranch was ideal. The owners at the time were the John Chachas family from Ely, Nevada. The foreman was Bert Charter, a former rodeo performer. I was an 18-year-old “city kid” from Ely and enjoyed the work and environment. There was no electricity and the water supply was a hand pump well near the ranch kitchen and bunk houses. There were 15-20 head of horses used for the operations. The owner kept a herd of 25 or so sheep which were used, primarily, for food. So we had mutton as the “main dish” 3 meals a day. As we worked 12 hours a day we were very hungry when called in to eat and the fried mutton strips, etc. tasted well. If we wanted a bath we saddled a horse and rode five miles down the road and used a neighbors pond. I better quit here. But at the end of my time there I was throwing 200 pound bales of alphalpha on the flatbed wagon.
leroy garcia
Posted at 00:09h, 17 Julyi grow up on the cleveland ranch i hope to come back and vist the ranch im currantly in iraq
Martin Lensch Jr. (Mike)
Posted at 13:51h, 07 AprilMy father, Mike Lensch and his brother Carl, both worked on the Cleveland Ranch just before World War II and again there after. I was born and lived with him there after 1947.