NAF News

BAKER RANCH, A SUCCESS STORY

Dean Baker is the major owner of a historic Nevada ranch situated in the shadows of 13,067 foot Mt. Wheeler. The ranch, located near the Utah line in the eastern part of the State, has a checkered past as a revenue producer. It has had its colorful moments. There has never been a time previously, though, when the property reached the sustained levels of production and prosperity that it now enjoys. This, similar to most successful enterprises, is the result of hard work, good management, and an ability of its owner to make the right move at the right time.

The name of this ranch is the Baker Ranch and it abuts the town of Baker. Neither the ranch or the town, which lies on the perimeter of the Great Basin National Park, derives its name from Dean Baker and his family. It was the Baker ranch and town long before the present owners arrived on the scene. First settlement of the property likely occurred in the late 1800's. Since, a number of people have been involved in owning the ranch and in its management.

The town of Baker and its neighboring settlement of Garrison, Utah had their "15 minutes" of color, glory and influx of big money in 1923. Hollywood, in the form of Paramount Studios, established a tent village in the area and spent a couple of months shooting segments of the silent movie "Covered Wagon" famous as the first EPIC western ever made by Hollywood. The plot traced the saga of western U.S. settlement and the adversity, struggles and perseverance of those involved. It depicted a wagon train of hardy pioneers that started in Kansas City and ended in Oregon. One source says that 300 covered wagons were used in the scenes with another saying 400. Hundreds of extras and movie making crew members took part. Present day movie critics have said that never have Indian attacks on wagon trains nor such caravans crossing rivers been more realistically filmed than in "Covered Wagon." One such "river" crossing was filmed at the Garrison reservoir. Scenes of Indian attacks, Wyoming calvary outposts and terrain were also filmed there as were some prairie shots. The stretches of brush-grass rangelands on the level valley floors around Baker duplicated the prairies with Mt. Wheeler and the Snake range substituting for the "Great Divide." Ranches in the area including the Baker ranch, then owned by the Meek brothers, were involved in the shoot providing horses, livestock and cowboys. Some of the Hollywood types taking part viewed the Baker Ranch as ideal for a guest or "Dude" ranch. Apparently some attempts were made to do this but it didn't work out.

Dean Baker's father, Fred, purchased the ranch in 1962 from Harold Raymond and since that time it has expanded in terms of acreage, cattle, and alfalfa production. A number of large ranching enterprises in Nevada, developed by combining smaller ranches, have been put together by major corporations such as oil companies and others. The Bakers have increased their property as a family and have done it the "old fashioned" way, starting with a bare bones operation and slowly earning the means to expand it.

Delta, Utah was the home of the elder Baker and he first became acquainted with the Baker Ranch in the early 1930's when, as a high school student, he worked summers on the ranch. He stacked hay in the daytime and frequently in the evenings played in a dance band for dances in Baker and Garrison. The Baker Ranch was then owned by the Peppard Seed Company. He liked it but it would be many years before he would own it. One of the better known owners of the ranch was Earl Edgar. He was from Imperial Valley California and with some partner investors acquired the ranch in the 1940's. Edgar was producing an estimated 3,600 tons of alfalfa hay at the time and was running a beef herd. He remained there for 15 to 20 years. During this time some of his partners were selling their equity. Raymond, a Southern California business man, traded a large home in Brentwood, California complete with six servants and a trolley straight across to the Edgar interests for the Baker Ranch. This was in the mid 1950s. Edgar stayed on either as a hired manager or because he still had an investment in the property. Later Raymond also acquired the Moon River Ranch in Nye county as a source of calves to feed hay produced at the Baker holdings.

Raymond was more of a speculator than an agriculturist and did not spend lot of time in hands on management of his investments. A good part of the time during those years he resided in a room in Ely's Nevada Hotel. According to Dean Baker, Raymond and Edgar didn't see eye to eye relative to managing the ranch and so Edgar left with Raymond remaining as sole owner. Edgar wound up ranching in Elko County. Raymond then hired a man by the name of Art Brumley to run the ranch. The story, said Baker, is that Brumley told his hired hands, "I don't care what you do just make enough dust that they see it from town." Suffices to say that Brumley's tenure was short lived. Raymond then got into the sheep feeding business. He had a 14 man crew feeding the 10,000 sheep he bought but wound up selling them at a loss since they only gained an average of 10 pounds each after a winter's feeding. These incidents may have caused Raymond to seriously review his ranching investments.

Fred Baker first invested in that area of Nevada in 1954 when he purchased the Bellander Brothers Silver Creek Ranch. Involved were deeded acres of pasture and hay fields but important to later developments were Animal Unit Months (AUM's) of permit grazing on U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered lands. At this time the Bakers were just struggling to get by. However, the elder Baker was involved in the Oasis Seed Company of Delta and decided he wanted to go into growing alfalfa seed. He approached Raymond concerning leasing of the Baker Ranch to produce the seed. Dean Baker said the most difficult financial problems they faced in their agricultural endeavors were finding the money required for the lease. They scraped and scrounged to come up with what they needed and were lucky to get some loan money. He added that the loan was difficult to obtain. In 1959, they leased the ranch and Dean said that included one pick up that ran, two tractors and no other farm machinery. "Being frugal and doing our best to make every cent we spent earn a profit, we managed to make a little on the lease," Dean said.

During the time that the Bakers were negotiating the lease, a consortium of ranchers including Lee Deardon, Goyhenetche and Edgar tried to buy the ranch. "However, ours was a long term lease agreement," said Dean Baker, "which Raymond felt had to be honored. This gave us the the inside track when he decided to sell." He told the Bakers that if they could come up with the necessary purchasing price the ranch was theirs. They were able to get a loan from the Federal Land Bank and in 1962, as was previously noted, acquired the property. Raymond then directed considerable attention to Hawaiin real estate.

Initial efforts on the ranch revolved around raising the alfalfa seed which at the time was a popular money crop. Dean recalls that stabilizing water flow to the ranch was required to meet production needs. "We wanted a constant flow of four acre feet, " Dean said, "but were losing water due to evapotranspiration in regular ditches. As a solution we converted to cement ditches." Raising the seed, Dean explained, required just a lot of hard work. "We filled sacks on the combine that would hold 140 pounds of seed," He said, "and my fingers would become raw from knotting the string used in tying the sacks. We'd then have to load and unload semi trucks in transporting the sacks to the Oases Seed Company in Delta. It amounted to a lot of heavy lifting." While at this time the focus was on the seed, the Bakers were also increasing their beef cow herd. They recognized that to do this they would have to acquire some key properties to augment their potential.

One morning while they were loading horses into a stock truck in order to work cattle on the Mountain Range property, owner Dave Jenks who also owned the Strawberry Creek and Weaver ranches offered to sell his holdings to the Bakers. He did this on a neighborly basis and set a price lower than he would have if he sold on the open market. The sale did not involve a real estate agent nor associated costs and was completed in two days. It consisted of 160 acres of deeded land plus some grazing allotements on U.S. Forest Service lands that fit into their growth plans. These permits were on USFS land that later was included in the Great Basin National Park. It was the first of a number of acquistions they would make. John Carpenter, Elko County rancher and a long time Nevada State legislator, bought all of the Lee and Vivian Deardon ranch nearby in the Garrison area. It was another sizable property. John then broke it up into smaller units. A major goal of Dean Baker was to add parcels of land that would enhance and stablize the overall ranch's water resources as well as add quality deeded property. One of the parcels they acquired from Carpenter was the Roland Springs unit which provided a constant flow of four second feet of water along with BLM grazing allotements. A thousand acres of good meadow land was added with the acquisition of the Carl Deardon unit.

The old Bellander B6 ranch was another important purchase. Glen Bellander, a son of one of the original Bellander brothers, wound up with the property but when he died the family sold the ranch. It went through three sets of owners in about five years before the last investor group went broke and the Bakers were able to acquire it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sold Dean some farmland near Garrison which included a small feedlot. Through the buying of the Emerson Gonder holdings, the Bakers control most if not all of the water in the area as well as valuable meadows and hay producing acreage.

Today the Baker ranch consists of 12,000 acres, runs around 2,000 head of cattle and, aside from feeding its own livestock, sells a significant amount of alfalfa hay to California dairies and to Las Vegas horse owners. They also grow out calves on contract with other livestockmen. Dean Baker is the major owner of the ranch but his three sons also have interests in the business. Tom is responsible for and directs hay operations, Craig is involved in all of the activities and David, the oldest, is in charge of the cattle. Dean also points out that a significant part of the ranch's work force is 85 year old buckaroo, Lee Whitlock. "Lee has been with us for 30 years," Dean said, "and is just like one of the family. He was laid up for awhile and couldn't ride a horse. It nearly killed him but he's now back on them. He's ridden almost every day of his life and a while back was awarded the Nevada Cattlemen's Association 100,000 miles on horse back award. He started cowboying when he quit school to take care of livestock on the mountain ranges around his home country in central Utah."

Dean through the years has received numerous recognitions and awards. He has long been a member of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association serving on the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, as a Second Vice President, and on various other boards and committees. He has also been named by the Association as Cattleman Of The Year. The U. S. Bureau of Land Management agencies in both Nevada and Utah have honored Dean for his management of grazing allotements on the public domain.

He is a former member of the Nevada Tax Commission. He is also a former Chairman and is a Director of the Nevada Rangeland Resources Commission. The Commission was the major sponser of a project close to Dean's heart that is now being realized. This is the building of a Livestock Heritage Center in which the Rangeland Resources Commission is cooperating with the U. S. Park Service. It is located near the main entrance to the Great Basin National Park and will provide pictorials, murals, videos or DVD's and written material on the part that livestock grazing and ranching played in the settlement and development of that area of Nevada. "The dedication of the Center," Dean said, "will be held soon." - 30 -

Mt. Wheeler, middle peak of the three snowcapped peaks in the background and a key aspect of the Great Basin National Park, rises high above the Baker Ranch fields.

Acres of good high quality cattle feed on a Baker Ranch pasture.

Dean Baker (right) owner of the Baker Ranch and architect of its success, chats with Gail Munk, Executive Director/Secretary of the Nevada Agricultural Foundation. Munk learned about the Ranch and its history during a spring 2004 trip to the ranch.

Log cabin on the Baker Ranch is a reminder of the past, when the ranch was in its earlier days. Good cow feed now grows around the old structure.

Black bally cows (Angus, Hereford crosses) graze on a Baker ranch pasture.