From Scrubland to Ranchland

From Scrubland to Ranchland. . It took hard work, but homesteaders and settlers who came from Canada, Europe, Asia and other parts of the United States scraped a living from this tough land. Many had come to the Eastern Sierra in the 1870s and 1880s seeking riches from mining towns such as Bodie - and realized that could make a better living provisioning the miners. , Ranch owners were entrepreneurs: Louis W. De Chambeau, the owner of this ranch, raised pigs and herded sheep, which were then slaughtered for meat that was sold or bartered. De Chambeau grew hay to feed cattle and had a hay baler that he leased to other families. Growing up in Canada, he was a fine woodworker and in the winter manufactured skis that he sold to the local community. , As remote as this ranch feels, it and other local ranches played an important role in the mining boom of the late nineteenth century in the Eastern Sierra. Without the produce and meat provided by the De Chambeau ranch and others, mining could not have taken place.