Boyd, Charles, Homestead Group

About this property

The Charles Boyd Homestead is a group of three buildings that make up a pioneer ranch complex. It is located in Deschutes County north of Bend, Oregon, United States. The ranch buildings were constructed by Charles Boyd between 1905 and 1909. Today, the three surviving structures are the only ranch buildings that date back to the earliest period of settlement in the Bend area. The Boyd Homestead is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. Charles Boyd was born in Ontario, Canada in 1863. He immigrated to Michigan with his family in the 1870s. He move to Philipsburg, Montana in 1883, where he married Anna Wyman. Boyd went into the cattle business with his brother, William, and served as mayor of Philipsburg. In 1904, Boyd moved west, settling along the Deschutes River near Bend in Central Oregon. He bought a 6-acre (24,000 m2) tract of land on the east side of the river, bordering the Swalley Canal. In 1905, his family joined him, and he built a house on his 6-acre (24,000 m2) property. Over the next few years, Boyd expanded his ranch and built a successful cattle and meat business. Boyd eventually owned 600 acres (2.4 km2), much of it purchased under provisions of the Carey Desert Land Act of 1894. His property included pasture lands for his cattle and hay fields for winter feed. He butchered and sold meat locally, becoming the largest meat supplier in the Bend area. He had contracts to provide beef for railroad and canal construction crews and the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company's busy logging camps. Boyd also owed a butcher shop in downtown Bend. During the early years of the Great Depression, Boyd lost his big contracts as Bend's saw mill cut production. He died in 1933; however, members of the Boyd family continued to live in the main ranch house until 1958. In 1978, the nucleus of the historic Boyd ranch was sold to developers as the city of Bend expanded northward. In 1979, the Boyd family moved the remaining three homestead buildings to a new site approximately one quarter mile from their original location. The grouping is now located on Bend River Mall Drive, approximately one quarter mile west of the Deschutes River. The new site is on a quarter-acre parcel that was part of Boyd's 600 acres (2.4 km2) ranch. The new site is also adjacent to the previous location on the Swalley canal where the buildings have been placed among old growth pine trees. This helps to maintain the character of the homestead. The three surviving Boyd ranch buildings possess integrity of design, craftsmanship, and materials that make them a unique grouping. In addition, they are the only surviving ranch building dating back to the earliest period of settlement in the Bend area. Because of their importance to Bend history, the Charles Boyd Homestead grouping was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 31 August 1982. Today, the Charles Boyd Homestead is a gift shop called Pomegranate Home and Garden.

Location

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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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