Guest Ranch Season

Guest Ranch Season Opens

TEN YEARS AGO GUEST or “dude” ranches were practically unknown in Arizona. True, a few cattle ranchers entertained Eastern friends for short periods of time but this was only just a part of the hospitality for which the West was noted.

Today there are more than sixty guest ranches within the boundary of the Baby State and Arizona leads all other states in the number of winter guest ranches. There are two distinct types of ranches, the strictly summer guest ranch and the winter guest ranches with many of the latter class keeping open the year around. The term guest ranch has been preferred by the owners of the ranches here in Arizona to distinguish them from the summer “dude” ranches in Wyoming and Montana.

The guest ranches open during the summer months are located in the northern portion of the state and have for their hub cities Flagstaff, Prescott and Springerville. The so-called winter guest ranches are located in the warmer sections of Arizona and use Phoenix and Tucson as their trading centers.

The Tucson and southern Arizona claim some twenty guest ranches while Phoenix and Central Arizona have approximately a like number. The Verde Valley near Jerome has a few ranches that are also winter and all-year guest ranches.

The twenty ranches in Southern Arizona are as diversified in their appeal as one can possibly imagine. No two are alike and the Easterner seeking a period of relaxation in Arizonas great outdoors has a wide choice of accommodations, locations and altitudes.

Old time cattle ranches with de luxe accommodations for guests, or just modern conveniences or good old bunk house facilities are in the selection. Here at these ranches the business of raising and selling cattle still goes on and the guests are invited to participate in the roundups and the general working of the cattle.

Another class of guest ranches are located on the sites of former cattle ranches with accommodations running the gamut from de luxe down to ordinary ranch facilities. These can always show the guest a close-up of the cattle business by taking him just over the fence line into neighbor John's cattle activities. All of these have a few essentials in common. There are good horses to ride the wide ranges, plenty of good nourishing food to eat and three hundred and fifty days of Arizona sunshine to enjoy.

None of the ranches will accept anyone with a communicable disease and several require an exchange of references. In this way the associations on the ranches are always friendly and it is not uncommon for the same group of people to return year after year to renew their acquaintanceship.

For entertainment the guest is encouraged to ride horseback, as this is the only true western method of seeing

in the South More That Three Score Arizona Establishments Provide Vacation Homes for Visitors from the East

Arizona, and over-night pack trips are often arranged with well established camps as the destination. Motor trips to points of interest usually form a part of the program and drives into Old Mex-ico are not uncommon.

Most of the ranches are equipped for polo and tennis with a few offering swimming pool facilities. Hunting during the various game seasons always furnishes excitement and hunting and fishing trips into Old Mexico can also be arranged.

The style and atmosphere of all the Arizona ranches are distinctly democratic and homelike and sport clothing is worn almost entirely, morning, noon and night. There is nothing dudish about an Arizona ranch guest and it is often hard to tell them from the cowboy wranglers in their big hats, blue jeans and woolen shirts.

The combined accommodations of all the guest ranches in Southern Arizona will run close to three hundred and seventy-five. The two largest from the standpoint of numbers are the Rancho Linda Vista at Oracle, and Circle Z near Patagonia, each of which can accommodate around sixty guests.

Then comes quite a list of ranches accommodating from a dozen to two dozen guests and in the group are the following: Faraway Ranch, on the west slope of the Chiricahua mountains; the Sierra Linda Ranch, in Cave Creek Canyon on the east slope of the Chiricahuas; Y Lightning Ranch, near Hereford and the Huachuca mountains; Bar O Ranch, out of Tombstone twelve miles in the Dragoon Mountains; 76 Ranch, between Willcox and Safford, in the Graham Mountains; Hacienda de La Osa on the Mexican border in the Baboquivari Mountains near Sasabe, Arizona; Tri-angle T Ranch, near Dragoon, at the head of Texas Canyon; Silver Bell Guest Ranch, on the Silver Bell road in the Tucson Mountains; Flying V Ranch, on the southern slope of the Catalina Mountains, just out of Tucson; Tanque Verde Ranch, twenty miles east of Tucson in the Rincon Mountains; Hacienda los En-cinos, at Sonoita; Harding Guest Ranch, and Las Moras Ranch on the outer edge of Tucson; Desert Willow Ranch on the Tanque Verde Road; Los Alamos Ranch, just out of Magdalena, Sonora, Mexico, and the Hacienda de Oquitoa Ranch near Oquitoa, also in Sonora, Mexico.

Those accommodating less than a dozen number but few, the outstanding one being the Diamond C Ranch in the Huachuca Mountains.