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Living the ‘ranching life’ from every angle
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| H&N photo by Lee Juillerat Don Hotchkiss and his family have been ranching in Lake County for nearly 100 years. |
June 18, 2007
Don Hotchkiss experienced ranching from several vantages, from owning and operating his own to serving as a banker who worked with ranchers.
But Hotchkiss’ most unusual ranching moments happened during World War II.
Drafted into the Army after earning a degree in animal science from Oregon State College in 1940, he earned a commission as an officer and was sent to Fort Ord, a former Army base near Monterey, Calif. While there, Hotchkiss was directed by the base commander to take over the cavalry and stables.
“He said, ‘You’re the only one that’s ever been on a horse, knows what a horse is,’ ” Hotchkiss recalls.
Horse sense is something he’s spent a lifetime practicing and perfecting. And it’s something he was born with.
Hotchkiss was born March 26, 1918, in Lakeview, the son of Plumas and Bessie Hotchkiss. His grandfather, Jason, moved his family to Lake County in the 1880s, ranching in the Crooked Creek and Abert Lake areas. Hotchkiss’ father, Plumas, named for California’s Plumas County, was putting a ranch together west of Lakeview by buying up tracts of Oregon Valley Land Development lots.
“They started it out buying the 10-acre tracts,” Hotchkiss says of how the family ranch, known as the 70 Ranch, was put together.
“He bought the 10-acre tract where the barn is and another 10 acres where the house was, and that’s how he started. He just kept adding to it,” explained Hotchkiss.
The historic 70 Ranch, established by the Heryford brothers in 1872, was a sprawling, legendary cattle ranch during the “Cattle Baron” era. It was liquidated in 1909 and sold to the OVL, which was buying land for an auction that resulted in the sale of 300,000 acres of Lake County lands.
Some historians regard the OVL sale as one of the West’s first land scams because the lands were advertised as a “garden of Eden” with plentiful water suitable for growing fruit and crops. Most of the property was barren high desert, rim rock lands. Lot sizes varied from 10 to 1,000 acres.
Started in 1915
Plumas began buying lots from a section of the former Heryford ranch in about 1915. The 5,000-plus acres accumulated over the years by three generations of the Hotchkiss family was where the Heryfords raised their saddle and draft horses. Plumas gradually added lots that became available for sale by disillusioned owners or by Lake County.
“After the taxes are delinquent for five years, the county forecloses on them and sells them,” tells Hotchkiss, who also bought several lots. “Everybody had a gentlemen’s agreement they wouldn’t buy parcels inside somebody’s fence. We didn’t buy any except those that were inside our fields.”
The family runs up to 500 cow-calves on its ranch northwest of Lakeview. Hotchkiss stepped down from managing the ranch in 1970, when he became a field representative who worked with ranchers for First Interstate Bank. Since then, the ranch has been managed by his son, Ron, and son-in-law and daughter, Jim and Sue McNeely.
Serving his country
Hotchkiss handled ranch operations for more than 20 years, after being discharged from the Army in 1947. During the war, he moved from Australia to the South Pacific islands and spent several months in post-war Japan before returning to Lakeview.
Easy transition
It was an easy transition.
“I enjoyed it, working on the ranch during high school,” he says of his growing up years.
As a boy, the ranch was mostly within the nearby region.
Along with cattle, his father ran sheep in the 1930s and ’40s. While Hotchkiss was in high school, “The ol’ sheepherder talked me into going to the range.”
He wasn’t especially enamored with sheep.
“I didn’t care for ‘em. Cows are easier to handle. Even at that time predators were a problem ” coyotes mostly. You didn’t dare leave a ewe and a baby lamb overnight.”
Grazing on permits
After the war, the ranch grazed cattle on forest and desert permits.
“We used to take off every winter from here (the home ranch) and drive the cows to Alkali Lake. It took us seven days. The old cows, they got to knowing where they were going, even if it snowed.”
The ranch’s cattle still spend winters at Alkali Lake, but cattle drives have been replaced by drives in cattle trucks.
Hotchkiss’s partner for more than 60 years was his late wife, Maxine, who died earlier this year. They met at Oregon State University, but didn’t become close until after college, when they both were in Klamath Falls. They were married in 1946 at Fort Ord.
Active for decades
For decades, Hotchkiss was active in a range of activities. He’s a past president of the Lake County Stockgrowers, was the Lake County Round-Up president in 1951 and was president of the Oregon Cattlemen in 1960-61.
He hasn’t been on horseback for three years, but Hotchkiss enjoys living at his ranch and, even in retirement, the lifestyle.
“I guess the main thing is you’re more or less your own boss,” he says of ranching. “Every night you can see what you’ve done. It’s a very satisfying life.”
- By Lee Juillerat
Don Hotchkiss experienced ranching from several vantages, from owning and operating his own to serving as a banker who worked with ranchers.
But Hotchkiss’ most unusual ranching moments happened during World War II.
Drafted into the Army after earning a degree in animal science from Oregon State College in 1940, he earned a commission as an officer and was sent to Fort Ord, a former Army base near Monterey, Calif. While there, Hotchkiss was directed by the base commander to take over the cavalry and stables.
“He said, ‘You’re the only one that’s ever been on a horse, knows what a horse is,’ ” Hotchkiss recalls.
Horse sense is something he’s spent a lifetime practicing and perfecting. And it’s something he was born with.
Hotchkiss was born March 26, 1918, in Lakeview, the son of Plumas and Bessie Hotchkiss. His grandfather, Jason, moved his family to Lake County in the 1880s, ranching in the Crooked Creek and Abert Lake areas. Hotchkiss’ father, Plumas, named for California’s Plumas County, was putting a ranch together west of Lakeview by buying up tracts of Oregon Valley Land Development lots.
“They started it out buying the 10-acre tracts,” Hotchkiss says of how the family ranch, known as the 70 Ranch, was put together.
“He bought the 10-acre tract where the barn is and another 10 acres where the house was, and that’s how he started. He just kept adding to it,” explained Hotchkiss.
The historic 70 Ranch, established by the Heryford brothers in 1872, was a sprawling, legendary cattle ranch during the “Cattle Baron” era. It was liquidated in 1909 and sold to the OVL, which was buying land for an auction that resulted in the sale of 300,000 acres of Lake County lands.
Some historians regard the OVL sale as one of the West’s first land scams because the lands were advertised as a “garden of Eden” with plentiful water suitable for growing fruit and crops. Most of the property was barren high desert, rim rock lands. Lot sizes varied from 10 to 1,000 acres.
Started in 1915
Plumas began buying lots from a section of the former Heryford ranch in about 1915. The 5,000-plus acres accumulated over the years by three generations of the Hotchkiss family was where the Heryfords raised their saddle and draft horses. Plumas gradually added lots that became available for sale by disillusioned owners or by Lake County.
“After the taxes are delinquent for five years, the county forecloses on them and sells them,” tells Hotchkiss, who also bought several lots. “Everybody had a gentlemen’s agreement they wouldn’t buy parcels inside somebody’s fence. We didn’t buy any except those that were inside our fields.”
The family runs up to 500 cow-calves on its ranch northwest of Lakeview. Hotchkiss stepped down from managing the ranch in 1970, when he became a field representative who worked with ranchers for First Interstate Bank. Since then, the ranch has been managed by his son, Ron, and son-in-law and daughter, Jim and Sue McNeely.
Serving his country
Hotchkiss handled ranch operations for more than 20 years, after being discharged from the Army in 1947. During the war, he moved from Australia to the South Pacific islands and spent several months in post-war Japan before returning to Lakeview.
Easy transition
It was an easy transition.
“I enjoyed it, working on the ranch during high school,” he says of his growing up years.
As a boy, the ranch was mostly within the nearby region.
Along with cattle, his father ran sheep in the 1930s and ’40s. While Hotchkiss was in high school, “The ol’ sheepherder talked me into going to the range.”
He wasn’t especially enamored with sheep.
“I didn’t care for ‘em. Cows are easier to handle. Even at that time predators were a problem ” coyotes mostly. You didn’t dare leave a ewe and a baby lamb overnight.”
Grazing on permits
After the war, the ranch grazed cattle on forest and desert permits.
“We used to take off every winter from here (the home ranch) and drive the cows to Alkali Lake. It took us seven days. The old cows, they got to knowing where they were going, even if it snowed.”
The ranch’s cattle still spend winters at Alkali Lake, but cattle drives have been replaced by drives in cattle trucks.
Hotchkiss’s partner for more than 60 years was his late wife, Maxine, who died earlier this year. They met at Oregon State University, but didn’t become close until after college, when they both were in Klamath Falls. They were married in 1946 at Fort Ord.
Active for decades
For decades, Hotchkiss was active in a range of activities. He’s a past president of the Lake County Stockgrowers, was the Lake County Round-Up president in 1951 and was president of the Oregon Cattlemen in 1960-61.
He hasn’t been on horseback for three years, but Hotchkiss enjoys living at his ranch and, even in retirement, the lifestyle.
“I guess the main thing is you’re more or less your own boss,” he says of ranching. “Every night you can see what you’ve done. It’s a very satisfying life.”
- By Lee Juillerat
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