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Jesse Hooker Davis sits at his din-ing room table, thinking the

morning’s problems have eased and he cannow enjoy a quiet lunch. But he runs a cattleranch, so that idea is out. The phone rings.The conversation with foreman José Adameproceeds in Spanish, and the gist of it is that aheifer is about to give birth and José can’t seethe calf ’s feet. They decide José will go italone to get the little one turned. If he can’t,Jesse will cut lunch short and head to the so-called hospital pen to help out.

“To me, running a ranch is damage con-trol,” says Davis, owner of the Sierra BonitaRanch, 27 miles north of Willcox in southeastArizona’s Sulfur Springs Valley. “You makeyour list the night before, your grand plans,then you walk out the door in the morningand it’s a whole new day.”

Davis and I have spent much of themorning talking about the history of this sto-ried property. Begun in 1872, the ranch isamong the oldest in Arizona, a place whereBilly the Kid once worked, where Wyatt Earp

Est. 1872Six generations on Arizona’s wild Sierra Bonita. And they still have grand plans.Words by Leo W. Banks. Photos by Scott Baxter.

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came while running from a posse, and wheregenerals, politicians and writers found wel-come from founder Henry Clay Hooker.

Hooker was born in New Hampshire in1828 of English stock, and he became a west-ern cattle baron who insisted that diners athis table wear a coat. He kept extras on handfor guests unaware of the rule. He was a cat-tleman, not a cowboy, known to everyone asthe Colonel. Although no one today canexplain the title, we can be sure he liked it.But Hooker also possessed that generosity ofspirit unique to the West. When it came tomen looking for work, he accepted them asthey were, without regard for how theylooked or talked, or even if their stories didn’thold up.

“We take a man here and ask no ques-tions,” Hooker once said. “We know when he

throws his saddle on his horse whether heunderstands his business or not. He may be aminister backsliding, or a banker saving hislast lung, or a train robber on a vacation—wedon’t care. A good many of our most usefulmen have made their mistakes. All we careabout is, will they stand the gaff? Will they sit60 hours in the saddle, holding a herd that’strying to stampede all the time?”

Hooker made his way to California afterthe Gold Rush. When his hardware businessin Placerville burned around 1866, he movedto Arizona Territory and made his fortuneselling beef to military posts and Indianagencies. He founded the Sierra Bonita—beautiful mountain—near a lush cienega, orspring. The valley was abundant with feed:sacaton, bunchgrass, grama, and sweet grass-es, and so high they brushed a rider’s boots.Another benefit was the moderate climate at4,500 feet, which allowed Hooker’s cattle towinter on the range without fear of lossesfrom snowstorms.

But the land’s most valuable asset waswater. In all, the ranch held five springs,numerous wells, and the valley basin collect-ed enough mountain runoff to keep thegrasses high. At the peak of his power, Hook-er ran 20,000 head on land measuring 30miles long and 20 miles wide—roughly250,000 acres.

But this part of Arizona in the early 1870s

was wild, the homeland of Cochise, theChiricahua Apache chief. Hooker built hishome under tall cottonwood trees, on thesite of an early 1800s Spanish haciendawhose occupants had been driven out byApaches. The Colonel made his house a fort,a three-sided rectangle measuring 100 feet by80 feet. Its exterior walls stood 16 feet highand were made of adobe, 20 inches thick.They were windowless and cut with rifleports to hold off attackers. The fourth side ofthe house was enclosed by a wall, a gate pro-viding the only entry. Inside the courtyard,the family maintained a well and windmill,in case of a long siege.

The Interior Department, citing “thefortresslike appearance of early days,” as wellas the look of the original adobe corrals,bunkhouses and barns, named the SierraBonita a national historic landmark in 1964.Pat Taylor, an adobe preservation contractorbased in Mesilla, N.M., inspected the Hookerhouse and calls it a “classic building thatretains all its original character.” Given thatthe same family has ranched there since itsfounding in a valley that’s also largelyunchanged, he believes the landmark status iswell deserved. “It’s such a unique place,absolutely beautiful,” he says. “I don’t thinkthere’s anything like it in the Southwest.”

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The morning has been a blur. Davis and José,who started at the ranch as a maintenanceman 34 years ago, have been brandingreplacement heifers, distributing mineralsand protein, and vaccinating calves. ButDavis, the Colonel’s great-great-great-grand-son, takes a break to sit by a picture window

TOP LEFT: Henry Clay Hooker, known as the Colonel, established the Sierra Bonita Ranch in 1872. At his death in 1907, he was still the cattle king of Arizona. LEFT: Cowboys are branding cattle in thespring. ABOVE: The ranch crew, tired and ready to eat.

“We know when he throws hissaddle on his horse whether he

understands his business or not.”—HENRY CLAY HOOKER

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off the dining room and talk.He is 39 years old, stocky, a former run-

ning back for the Cornell University footballteam. But he only lasted a year and a half inupstate New York before the culture shockgot to him and he transferred. He spent mostof his youth in San Diego, playing sports andsurfing. He still loves the water, dreams of itfrom parched Arizona, and takes surfingvacations to places like Nicaragua and CostaRica. He moved to the ranch in 2003 to man-age it for his grandmother, Jacqueline Hook-er “Rinkie” Hughes. He was 30. “A surfingcowboy,” Davis says, filling the room with abooming laugh.

From living at the ranch as a preschooler,and later returning to help with roundups, heknew how to ride and drive cattle. But heacknowledges that the details of cowboyingwere a mystery and his learning curve haspointed straight up. “It’s been a pleasure,though, too,” he says. “I’m picking up a tonevery day.”

Through the big window, we can see outto the Pinaleño Mountains, 10 miles north-east. Beneath them stand the remains of oldFort Grant, built to deal with the Apachethreat. “It’s no accident that Hooker placedhis headquarters in direct line of sight to thefort,” says Davis. “It was his protection. Helived pretty much on the periphery of every-

thing. This was the Wild West.This is where it happened.”

Billy the Kid killed his firstman near Fort Grant inAugust 1877. It seems thatblacksmith Francis “Windy”

Cahill, living up to his nickname, was bad-gering the Kid, and what a mistake thatwas. Billy left Arizona in a hurry, Cahilldead behind him. Little is known about theKid’s short time at the Sierra Bonita,although some believe the teenager didn’ttake to hard work and was let go.

Earp made a fast exit from Arizona aswell, in March 1882. In revenge for the mur-der of his brother Morgan, Wyatt killed acowboy in Tucson. On the way out of the ter-ritory with a murder rap over his head, heand his men, including the tubercular dentistDoc Holliday, stopped to see Wyatt’s friendHooker, for rest and resupply.

Although the Apaches killed several ofHooker’s cowboys out on the range, thehouse was never molested. Hooker andCochise got along, even trading blankets as afamily story says. The Colonel believed it wasbetter to feed the Indians than fight them,and he often cut out beef for them when theywanted it.

At first Hooker stocked the ranch withTexas longhorns and low-grade Mexican cor-rientes, later replacing them with Durhamcattle. He eventually moved to Herefords andtheir white faces became his trademark. TheColonel also raised trotting horses and grey-hounds. At his death in Los Angeles in 1907,Hooker was still the cattle king of Arizona.

At 45,000 acres, the ranch today is aboutfive times smaller than in the Colonel’s time.Some land has been split off among familymembers, and in the early 20th century vari-ous government actions allowed homestead-ers to claim portions of the federal landHooker’s family controlled.

“This reduced the size of the ranch con-

Headquarters of the Sierra Bonita, ca. 1900. Carriages similar to the ones pictured arestill in the garage on the property. LEFT: Jesse Hooker Davis, a self-described surfingcowboy, in a tack room at the ranch. OPPOSITE: Cowboys roping today. INSET: Cowboysroping cattle in an adobe corral on the Sierra Bonita at the turn of the last century. Thework hasn’t changed much. At its height, the ranch stretched as far as the eye could see inevery direction.

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siderably,” says Gary Thrasher, a veterinarianwho helps Davis doctor his stock. “But it alsoshrank the ranch’s access to water and that’sas important as having grazing land.” In drytimes, Hooker moved his cattle into themountains where perennial springs providedplenty of water, and after the rains he’d movethem back to the valley. “But Jesse is mostlyon the valley floor now and doesn’t have thatoption,” says Thrasher.

The Sierra Bonita has no running waterexcept for two springs, making the ranch, likemost Arizona properties, dependent on rain-fall to refill the aquifer and keep its 26 wellspumping. Davis also has dirt tanks to collectmountain runoff. “But if those tanks go dry,we’re hauling water or moving cattle,” hesays. “If there’s a broken pipeline, or lightningtakes out a well on electric, we have to movefast to get it back up.”

Rainfall in this high-desert environmentis low, with 13 inches considered a good year.And the rain can be spotty even within theranch boundaries, sometimes forcing Davisto haul water from a thriving pasture to onethat is water poor. Or, if winter and springrains don’t fall, he might have to sell cows toget through the summer before he can buildup again. “There are times when all we do, all

day long, is take care of water,” Davis says.“People who don’t live in the Southwest don’tunderstand that.”

Another issue he wrestles with is preser-vation. Naturally, after so many decades themain house needs work, and some outbuild-ings, especially the original adobe bunkhous-es in back, are in serious disrepair. Threeyears ago, a winter storm roared through thevalley and flattened a barn dating to about1900. Doing repairs himself would be pro-hibitive, and as his great-grandfather HarryHooker always said, “When the house paysthe bills, we’ll fix the house.” If the Park Ser-vice renovates a private enterprise, Davis says,there usually is some benefit to the public,such as opening it for tours, and he alreadyknows what that would be like. At least oncea month, unannounced visitors drive up andstart taking pictures before he has a chance tosay hello. Some knock on his door and ask tocome inside and look around.

“They don’t realize this is my business aswell as my home,” Davis says.

“What do you tell them?” I ask.He pauses and grins. “Sorry, but

I haven’t made my bed today.”■ ■ ■

Davis and I talk through lunch

about various aspects of ranch life. Then thephone rings again. “Wait a minute, this isJosé,” he says. “Hola.... Gracias! Muchos gra-cias, José!”

The news is good. The calf has been bornand Davis and I head out to the hospital pento have a look. The heifer backs up at ourarrival, snorting and swaying, her big eyesfixed on us. When finally at ease, she stepsforward and noses her shivering newbornand begins to lick it clean. A new life hascome to the Sierra Bonita and Davis is thereto welcome it, as his family has done for 140years.

But he can’t linger. The clock is ticking ona short winter day, and he has that to-do listto winnow down. “This ranch has beenpassed down through six generations of myfamily in a way most people can’t even fath-om,” he says. “That’s why I don’t consider itmy ranch. This is my family’s ranch and it’smy turn to take care of it.” ■

Award-winning journalist Leo W. Banks hasbeen writing about Arizona for more than 30years. He lives in Tucson.

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