By Dr. Scott White
Gold prospectors headed for California during the 1840s found a route along the southern end of the Great Salt Lake which turned out to be the pathway used by the Bidwell Party and the Donner Company. A few years later a better route was found that came across southern Idaho and northern Nevada. This path brought travelers to a spot where a set of springs came to the surface. One was hot and one cold. In later years this would become the sight of the Winecup Ranch headquarters.
By 1852, livestock owners were grazing sheep and cattle at that spot with the number of cattle increasing by 1855. James Armstrong brought his cattle into what had become known as the Upper Thousand Springs Valley and began buying land for a ranch. He began using the Winecup brand after buying the H-D Ranch. John Sparks, a future governor of Nevada, moved into the area in 1881. He bought out Armstrong and another rancher there, Jasper Harrell, to expand the Winecup Ranch. Sparks sold out in 1891 to Andrew Harrell, first bringing Andrew in as a partner and then selling the rest of his interest to him in 1901 when Sparks decided to become a politician.
The ranch was bought again in 1908 by David Eccles who combined it with another company so that the ranch land holdings amounted to more than 3,000,000 acres. His company, the Utah Construction Company, built Hoover Dam and the Alaska Highway.
Russell Wilkins and Martin Wunderlich bought the Winecup and Gamble Ranches from Eccles in 1945, each taking a ranch. Jimmy Stewart, the actor, bought the Winecup in 1953. Four years later the ranches were put together as one ranch and proceeded to be sold numerous times for the next 36 years. Because of the constantly changing ownerships, the ranch was mismanaged. Paul Fireman, (he owned Reebok and sold it to Adidas), bought the ranch in 1993. Fireman brought in new management and innovations to the ranch.
The ranch, in 2016, was for sale again. By that time, it had over 9,000 cattle and a reputation as one of the great ranches of Nevada. Though the Winecup Gamble does not cover 3 million acres anymore, it is still a large ranch operating on about 1,000,000 acres of the original ranch running Brangus and Angus cattle bred to Herefords. As a result of Nevada’s “fence out” policies, the ranch grazes cattle on any unfenced land.
Sources:
Winecup Gamble Ranch – Bates Land Company
Winecup Gamble Ranch website
Great Ranches of the United States
