Spade Ranch
About this property
The Spade Ranch is a large cattle ranch located in the Sandhills of western Nebraska between the towns of Gordon and Ellsworth. Established in 1888 by Bartlett Richards, the ranch was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The Spade Ranch, is a historic cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills, spanning portions of Sheridan and Cherry Counties. Established in 1888 by Bartlett Richards and developed in partnership with William G. Comstock and other associates, it became one of the largest ranching enterprises in the United States of America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Richards and Comstock played an important role in the development of cattle ranching in Nebraska. Under their management, the Spade grew into a vast and highly organized operation supported by fencing, wells, windmills, trails, and telephone lines, helping demonstrate that the Sandhills could sustain large-scale grazing and improved cattle production. By 1905, with open-range grazing and strong cattle markets, the Spade encompassed more than 500,000 acres (200,000 ha) and, at its peak, supported a herd of 60,000 cattle. The ranch’s early history was also marked by controversy. In 1906, Richards and Comstock were tried on charges connected to fraudulent public-land entries tied to the ranch’s fenced range. They were convicted, and the legal battles, imprisonment, Richards’s death in 1911, and Comstock’s death in 1916 all contributed to the decline of the original enterprise. By 1923, the ranch’s mortgages had been foreclosed. The Bixby family became central to the ranch’s later history after the collapse of the original holdings. Lawrence Bixby, whose family had been connected with the ranch since the early 1900s, gradually assembled significant portions of the former Spade lands, including the headquarters in Home Valley and the extensive hay meadows that were among the most valuable parts of the ranch. He restored the property to profitable operation, and the ranch has thereafter remained in Bixby family operation as a working cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills. The Spade Ranch is named for the cattle brand that founders Bartlett Richards and William Comstock used to mark their cattle. The brand resembles an Ace of Spades on playing cards. The Spade brand is still in use as the ranch brand today.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Spade Ranch listed on the National Register?
Spade Ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 28, 1980.
What type of historic resource is Spade Ranch?
Spade Ranch is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Spade Ranch?
The period of significance for Spade Ranch is recorded as the listed era.
Can I research the history near Spade Ranch?
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