HISTORY OF THE RANCH

The  Ranch has a rich and storied history that deepens its significance as a  site for enduring public interest and involvement. The Chumash used the  ranch for centuries for hunting and gathering. Signs of their  prehistoric occupation of the ranch are quite prevalent.  A Spanish land  grant formed its southernmost range.  Our first knowledge of the ranch’s place in modern history concerns the post gold rush cattle-drive system  in California. The Chimineas Cow Camp was an identified location within  the system of iconic cattle drives that characterize that era of western  history.  Prior to the opening of a coast route, the Carrizo Plains Trail from the Cuyama Valley across Chimineas was an important cattle-driving corridor. The name “Chimineas” reportedly was given to  the camp by early vaqueros who found the remains of an old hearth and chimney present at the current ranch headquarters location. Cowboys  reported the chimney still standing in 1924, and during an El Nino flood in 1978 blackened hearth stones were uncovered by erosion at the  reported site.

The  area that would become the core of the Chimineas Ranch was federal  property until 1883 when 20,000 acres were purchased by J. H. Hollister  and Frederick Adams as a private ranch.  By 1888 the Chimineas Adobe (pictured above), which now forms the heart of the Chimineas Ranch house, was erected.  In  1891 the first threat to the Chimineas occurred when Hollister & Adams  tried to market the ranch as a town site and subdivided the land based upon a rumor of a railroad cutting through the ranch. Fortunately, nothing came of this scheme.  At some point in the late 1800’s, the Reis family acquired the ranch and held it until the 1930’s.  A young man by  the name of Claude Arnold came onto the Chimineas in 1924 and fell in  love with the ranch.  It took until 1937 for Arnold to buy the ranch from the Reis family but he did it and kept the ranch until the 1970’s,  building it up until the deeded and leased property exceeded 50,000  acres supporting over 8,000 head of cattle. He hand-dug the wells, worked the land and eventually married into an old Carrizo Plains homestead family.  He raised his family there and even became a county supervisor for many years.  Unfortunately, in 1972 family circumstances  led to the sale of the ranch.

The  Robertson family from Texas bought the Santa Margarita Land and Cattle Company that included the Chimineas and the Santa Margarita Ranch in  1973.  In 1999, the Robertson family sold the Chimineas holdings to Dr. Neil Dow, a veterinarian, who then initiated a major renovation to the  ranch house shown above with the old adobe at its core.  Dr. Dow only owned the ranch for two years before selling the south half (~15,000 acres) to The Nature Conservancy which in turn sold it to the California Department of Fish and  Game (now Fish and Wildlife) in 2002 . In 2004, the Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation helped the Department acquire the north half (another ~15,000 acres)  directly from Dr. Dow. 

Now fully in public ownership, the ranch facility provides an extraordinary  opportunity to conduct outreach and education on wildlife ecology, hunting, the role of ranching, and other resource related concerns.  It  also serves as the administrative headquarters for hunting and  educational programs, habitat enhancement, and volunteer activities. The  North and South Chimineas became two units of the Department’s Carrizo Plains Ecological Reserve (CPER).  Today the  ranch, and the other units of the CPER, provide public stewardship,  ecological education, habitat conservation, and protection for threatened  and endangered species as well as opportunities for public recreation  that are compatible with those goals.

History of the ranch researched by Mike Post.