Small Town Gold

While the movie “City Slickers” may have put dude ranches on adventure seekers’ radars in the 1990s, the tradition of being a temporary cowboy dates back much farther in Arizona.

“During the heyday of the ’20s, there were about 110 dude ranches in Arizona,” says Diana Nash, owner and director of marketing at Circle Z Ranch, the oldest continually operating guest ranch in Arizona. “Today, there’s only about 13 of us left.”

The range where Circle Z Ranch sits started as a sheep-herding operation in the 1880s, benefiting from Sonoita Creek, one of the rare year-round streams in Arizona. In 1925, the Spinmeister family of Louisville, Kentucky, purchased the 5,000-acre property to develop one of the finest guest ranches in the state. The following year, they opened for business to accommodate 24 guests and eventually expanded to 70, with many staying for a month or even the entire season. Circle Z persisted through the ups and downs through the Great Depression and World War II, with ownership changing hands several times.

In 1976, the property once again came up for sale and was purchased by Nash’s parents-in-law, Preston and Lucia. The family’s history of riding at the ranch dated back to the 1930s, and Nash’s husband Rick went for several years during his childhood, as well.

“It was tied to their love of a really special area,” Nash says. “They weren’t going to let it get sold to a developer, which had been the rumor.”

About 15 years ago, Diana and Rick started coming down more often from their home in Montana to help Lucia with operations. When she passed away in 2018, they became the owners, assisted by managers George and Jennie Lorta, and their son Miko.

As it approaches its 100th anniversary, Circle Z has maintained its mission as a traditional guest ranch, focused on horseback riding from the end of October through May. With more than 100 miles of trails, popular rides range from riparian areas and desert scrub to high mountain grasslands, and from 2 1/2 hours to all-day adventures, with amazing vistas at every turn and comfort at the end of the ride.

“We put all of our energies into our guests, our horses, and our facilities,” Nash says. “All of the cottages at the ranch were built in the ’20s, so we’ve gone through over the past eight years and remodeled everything. We remodeled the lodge, keeping it traditional and intimate, but just kind of up to the next level.”

For some historical perspective on the roots of ranching in Arizona, Franciscan Friar Marcos de Niza is credited as the first person to take possession of the land now known as the Babacomari Ranch in 1539 on behalf of the King of Spain.

Fast forward to 1832, when the original San Ignacio del Babacomari land grant was issued by the Republic of Mexico to the Elias family, which grazed thousands of cattle and horses on the lush grasslands. Now fast forward again to 1935, when Babacomari Ranch was acquired by Frank and Sallie Brophy, whose family of almost 70 partners now represents a fifth generation of ownership.

The early years were not easy for the Brophys, with land that had been overgrazed, parched by drought cycles, and eroded by torrential rains that created arroyos and washed precious topsoil into the San Pedro River. Ultimately, decades of conservation efforts paid off and returned the land to its former glory.

Today, Babacomari Ranch ranks as the largest contiguous private land parcel in Arizona, at nearly 28,000 acres, ranging from desert to riparian to woodland habitats. For the past six years, Ellen Williams, a fourth-generation Arizonan and granddaughter of Frank and Sallie Brophy, has served with her husband Joe as the onsite managers.

On any given day, they might be working on conservation easements and grant projects, putting in wells and waterlines, checking drinkers and fences, or putting out supplements and salt for the cattle. Between their own 130 cattle and those on leases, they have about 700 head on the range in 2023, a year in which they are resting some of the pasture.

A dazzling array of other wildlife shares the landscape: jaguars and bobcats, pronghorn antelope, javelina, deer, turkeys, and bears. “This is also one of the 10 most popular birding areas in the world,” Williams says. “We get a lot of guests who specifically come here for that.”

After a day of birding, hiking, mountain biking, fishing with the kids, doing winery tours, or attending a wedding ceremony, the rental accommodations at the ranch are in the historic Adobe House, which is the original structure on the property.

“Our destination is most popular during the spring and fall, and even in the summertime, we always cool down at night under the starry skies,” Williams says. “Any time of year, you can just get away for peace and quiet.”