Book Chronicles Family Enterprise
Ellison Ranching Co.’s Cattle & Sheep Have Been Feeding Consumers for More Than a Century
By Dianna Troyer
In 1925, the fate of the Spanish Ranch depended on a coin flip between 2 unlikely business partners standing on the courthouse steps in Carson City.
Devout Mormon Ephraim Peter “E.P.” Ellison from Layton, Utah, and hot-tempered sheep rancher John G. Taylor from the Fallon area agreed to combine their financial resources and buy ranches at the foreclosure sale. They agreed that a coin flip would decide which properties would be added to their other respective ranches.
“The land was only $2.50 an acre,” says Cyd McMullen, a Great Basin College emeritus history professor.
Cyd wrote about E.P.’s business endeavors in a book, “High Desert Empire: Ellison Ranching Company 1910 through 1920.”
E.P. won the coin flip and picked the 40,000-acre Spanish Ranch north of Tuscarora. Along with the 71, PX, and Fish Creek ranches, it forms Ellison Ranching Co. The livestock and farming enterprise sprawls across Lander, Elko, and Humboldt counties and generally has 60 full-time employees.
The ranch’s size made it 1 of the West’s historic cattle empires. It has the modern distinction of ranking as the 7th largest cow-calf operation nationwide, according to a 2020 report from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
The enterprise, headquartered at the Spanish Ranch, encompasses 156,000 deeded acres and 2.5 million acres of grazing permits on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land.
Starting in September, the ranch’s buckaroos are bustling. They bring the cattle down from the mountains to wean calves. In October, calves are sent to an Idaho feedlot.
“Our cattle work starts in September and doesn’t seem to finish until December,” says Ira Wines, company president. “We ship the lambs and truck the ewes south for the winter. Our cattle are predominantly Black Angus crossed with Hereford bloodlines, while our ewes are Rambouillet.”
Honoring an Entrepreneur
As a tribute to his great-grandfather E.P., Peter Ellison, president of Ellison Ranching Co. from 1988 to 2020, asked Cyd to write a book about the family business. The company has survived and thrived despite 2 World Wars, the Great Depression, a harsh climate, occasional poor hay crops, labor shortages, and unpredictable lamb and beef prices.
It is unusual because, unlike other cattle empires, it is still run by the family that built it instead of absentee owners or a distant corporation, according to Peter.
“Peter and I are longtime friends from both of us serving on the board of the Western Folklife Center,” Cyd says. “He asked me if I’d take on the project after I retired from the college.”
She was eager and well-qualified to write the book, having taught Western history classes for 3 decades. She has also written several papers for historical publications.
“My family has deep roots with ranching throughout northern Nevada, so it’s a topic I’m familiar with and love writing about,” Cyd says.
Her father, Hugh, managed and owned ranches and was a real estate agent and appraiser.
“Northern Nevada gets in your blood, and you don’t want to live anywhere else,” says Cyd, who lives on a portion of her family ranch on South Fork about 12 miles north of Jiggs.
After retiring in 2011 from the college, she began researching and writing the book. She collaborated with local historian Jan Petersen, who at the time worked at the Northeastern Nevada Museum. Jan later worked at the California Trails Interpretive Center and retired in February as executive director of the Cowboy Arts and Gear Museum.
Cyd read countless documents and company minutes and interviewed family members and employees to chronicle the buying and selling of ranches until the company reached its current size.
Envisioning a Nevada Empire
Cyd says she always wondered why E.P. chose to build a ranching empire in northern Nevada but “he never mentioned that in his notes. It could have been that the railroad in northern Nevada made the area accessible for him from Utah.”
In 1910, when E.P. organized investors to buy Nevada ranches, the recently established federal Bureau of Reclamation was promoting irrigation as a way to grow bountiful crops in the arid West.
“Promoters thought enough snow would melt from the mountains to provide adequate irrigation,” Cyd says. “But investors learned otherwise.”
For example, East Coast investors optimistically planned the town of Metropolis 15 miles northwest of Wells, but it eventually became a ghost town due to lack of water.
A meticulous planner, E.P. bought ranches with adequate creeks and rivers. When he started buying Nevada property, his attention to detail paid off. A longtime entrepreneur, he had already established a mercantile, bank, flour mill, and sugar manufacturing plant in Utah.
“Although he lived in Layton, he came out on the train whenever necessary,” Cyd says. “He was a remarkable visionary. Instead of considering retirement when he was 60 years old, he began envisioning a Nevada ranching enterprise.”
Cyd says it was an honor to write the book.
“The company has a reputation for perseverance and fair dealing that gives it a place in the history of ranching and the American West.”
The 299-page book, published in 2020, includes maps, historical photos, and contemporary photos from acclaimed Nevada photographers Kurt Markus, Adam Jahiel and John Langmore.
After Peter retired in 2020, Ira was elected company president. He had worked as general manager since 2017 and previously as buckaroo manager.
“His mentor, Bill Hall, is the first person who wasn’t a family member to manage the ranch,” Cyd says.
Writing the book was gratifying and sparked her interest in a new project, she says.
“I’m starting to write about my own family’s ranching history,” Cyd says.
To get a copy of the book, call ranch headquarters at (775) 753-8826 or visit the Northeastern Nevada Museum, Western Folklife Center, or the Cowboy Arts and Gear Museum in Elko.
