Santa Rosa Island Ranching District: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Channel Islands National Park, National Park Service

Provencher, Shaun; Livingston, Dewey

Santa Rosa Island is located about 50 miles from Channel Islands National Park headquarters in Ventura and almost 30 miles across the Santa Barbara Channel from the closest mainland point at Goleta, west of Santa Barbara. At 53,364 acres it is the second largest of the east/west‑trending northern Channel Islands and sits between San Miguel Island on the west and Santa Cruz Island on the east. Santa Rosa Island is distinguished by seven points of land ranging in character from a broad, sandy spit (Skunk Point) to a blunt and steep protruding promontory (South Point). Divided by a long ridge of high peaks, the island consists of rolling hills cut by canyons and creek drainages. The island is mostly covered by grasses, with large patches of chaparral and occasional groves of trees, including the rare Torrey pines on the eastern coast and the island oak found in the upper elevations. The grassland landscape reflects the historic agricultural/grazing uses of the island. The Santa Rosa Island Ranching District is significant on a local level as an intact nineteenth and twentieth century California sheep and cattle ranch. Vail & Vickers and its predecessor, the More family, created and operated one of the largest and most productive livestock ranches in the state, contributing to the growth of agriculture and the continued economic development of Southern California and the West. Island owner A.W. More, as well as members of his immediate family, was a prominent landowner and early agriculturalist and businessman in Santa Barbara County; Walter L. Vail and J. V. Vickers and their heirs owned a handful of large ranches in California and Arizona, being among the important men in the livestock industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The three owner families constructed buildings, structures, and a complex system of ranch roads, watering features, and roundups that now stand as good examples of rural vernacular architecture, showing how the ranchers adapted to the unique island environment to develop a large stocker cattle ranch within the context of shrinking ranches along the California coast and the general conversion to feedlot ranching throughout the United States. The property’s significance in agriculture in the southern coastal area of California can be seen in the extant historic features that can be located across the island. A complex of buildings at Bechers Bay acted as the headquarters and includes houses, barns, sheds, utility buildings, corrals, water systems, a long pier and historic vegetation. On the outer parts of the island are two “line camps” and a vast network of corrals, fencing and roads, all of which played important parts in operating the ranch. Water systems, including wells, springs, pipelines, tanks, troughs and reservoirs are found at numerous locations on the island. Many of these resources were developed in the nineteenth century, while other buildings and structures originated during periods of change, upgrading and modern improvement during the twentieth century. These features, which possess cohesion of purpose and historical integrity, represent the important livestock industry of California, which had its start with the Spanish missions of the late 1870s and blossomed during the Gold Rush and early statehood. The ranches contributed to the local and state economy through depressions, wars and during the unprecedented growth of post‑war America. Until the end of ranching on the island in 1998, the ranch was operated under the traditional system of vaqueros on horseback tending cattle, which would be shipped to and from the mainland using a unique system of wooden cattle boats and barges.

Santa Rosa Island Ranching District: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Channel Islands National Park, National Park Service

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