Roba Ranch, The

About this property

The Roba Ranch is a pioneer ranch located near the small unincorporated community of Paulina in Crook County, Oregon. The ranch is named for George and Mary Roba, sheep ranchers who acquired the property in 1892. Most of the important ranch buildings were constructed by the Roba family between about 1892 and 1910. Today, the ranch covers 1,480 acres (6.0 km2) and is privately owned. The ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Native Americans lived in Central Oregon for thousands of years before the arrival of Euro-American settlers. The high desert animals, birds, and plants provided food for these early inhabitants. While there are no records of the earliest people to inhabit the area, by the time Euro-Americans began to explore Central Oregon in the middle of the 19th century, the Northern Paiutes and various Sahaptin speaking peoples were using the area around what is now the Roba Ranch. Euro-Americans settlers began arriving in Crook County in the 1860s. The first town in the area was Prineville, Oregon. It was established 1868 as a combined store, saloon, and blacksmith shop. While low annual rainfall limited farming, the area's open grasslands were ideal for grazing cattle and sheep. Cattle were brought into area by the first settlers. Sheep were introduced a short time later. Most ranches in the area were small parcels granted under the 1862 Homestead Act. However, ranchers let their livestock graze freely across unoccupied public lands. Typically, livestock was left on the open range year around. During the spring and summer, cattle and sheep herds used high elevation pastures in the Ochoco and Blue mountains. Then the herds were driven to lower elevations pastures for the winter. By 1890, there were approximately 300,000 sheep and 40,000 cattle grazing on Central Oregon range land. George Roba was born in Jernye, Czechoslovakia in 1862. He immigrated to the United States in 1882. After arriving in the United States, he worked as a miner in Pennsylvania. While mining, Roba met three Czechoslovak brothers who introduced him to their sister. He married Maria (“Mary”) Sojka in 1886. Lured by the opportunity to acquire a Homestead Act land grant, Roba moved to Central Oregon in 1888. His wife and young family remained in Pennsylvania while he looked for work in Oregon. Roba found a job as a sheepherder at a ranch near Paulina, Oregon. He herded sheep through the Paulina Valley and along the north fork of the Crooked River. By 1889, George had accumulated a small herd of sheep and earned enough money to send for his family.

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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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