Gentle reader: When I began looking online for the history of the Rancheros Visitadores horseback trail riding organization, my computer and phone searches were flooded with recipes involving eggs, tortillas, and salsa. If you're looking for huevos rancheros, you've come to the wrong blog post.
But if you are looking for a small chapter in California's equine history, then you're in the right place. Read on!
Throughout most of the 20th century, riding clubs and trail rides were popular in California and throughout the Southwest. One of the best-known annual trail rides was that of the Rancheros Visitadores, the "visiting ranchers," in Santa Barbara County.
Monrovia/Duarte horse rancher Merle H. Little participated in five Rancheros rides between 1936 and 1941, and saved memorabilia and photographs from his adventures in a large ledger he used as a scrapbook. They give us an intimate look at the annual event.
First, though, some background.
There are several versions of the founding of Los Rancheros Visitadores. In his book California's Knight on a Golden Horse: Dwight Murphy, Santa Barbara's Renaissance Man, Edward A. Hartfield says the most authoritative is that of Elmer Awl, at the time the manager of rancher J. J. Mitchell's holdings, including the famous Rancho Juan y Lolita.
[Awl] says it all started when he and [artist] Ed Borein were talking in 1929 and Borein suggested that they should get some friends together and take a trip into the backcountry with a chuck wagon, visiting various ranches along the way. Awl passed along Borein's idea to Mitchell, who was enthusiastic about it because of similar experiences of camaraderie he had had with the Bohemian Club of San Francisco...
The first official Rancheros Visitadores ride was organized by Borein, Mitchell, Dwight Murphy, and fourteen of their equestrian-minded friends. Murphy hosted the riders, ninety strong, at his Los Prietos Ranch on the evening of May 9, 1930, and they set out on their historic four-day trek the following morning. During the ride sixty-nine participants signed a founding members' roster and elected Murphy vice president and Jack Mitchell president, a post he would hold for 25 years. Elmer Awl was made secretary-treasurer....
Early supporters of an participants in Los Rancheros Visitadores were mostly local including several owners of the large ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley that comprised most of the land of the original Mexican land grants in the area, along with a handful of participants from outlying areas in Southern California. But the rides soon gained national attention, and by 1934 there were more than two hundred participants, including a few from out of state...
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The Arabian Stud Book Supplement for 1939
shows us a photograph of banker and Arabian horse breeder Albert Harris
taking part in the 1938 ride on his gelding Ormuz 717. |
By 1940 there were 355 members... Over the years many nationally recognized figures, including presidents and governors such as Ronald Reagan and John Connolly, rode along with heads of major corporations such as Philip K. Wrigley and Justin Dart (Rexall Drug), and Hollywood entertainers like Will Rogers, Irvin S. Cobb, Leo Carrillo, Walt Disney, Edgar Bergen, Clark Gable, and nearly every cowboy movie star of any significance.
In later years, the Rancheros would ride to raise funds for charity, as they do now.
Some historians have critiqued the Rancheros Visitadores as an example of "ruling class cohesiveness," and/or of wealthy (mostly white) men showing off by cosplaying vaqueros while visiting one another's large expanses of land, supported by a large team of employees. Others liken these sorts of annual trail rides as the equivalent of an exclusive golf vacation for guys who could afford it. And indeed, only men could take part. California state historian Kevin Starr (1940-2017) described the Rancheros rides as a "dude ranch in motion, a resort experience."
As always, I'm mostly here to document the relationship between horses and humans. The horses had no idea whether their owners were wealthy or middle-class. And after 57 miles of riding, dirt, sweat, and saddle sores are no respecters of men.
Many interesting artifacts and photos from the history of Rancheros Visitadores are held in Santa Barbara County museums. The Carriage and Western Art Museum in Santa Barbara has a number of "RV" items on display.
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| Rancheros Visitadores items, Carriage and Western Art Museum |
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| A summary of Elmer Awl and the Rancheros Visitadores provides context. |
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Artist Joe De Yong's receipt for the 1936 Rancheros ride, Carriage and Western Art Museum
The Santa Barbara History Museum has RV items on display. |
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| Rancheros Visitadores pin and badge, Santa Barbara History Museum |
The Santa Ynez Valley Historical Museum and Carriage House collection contains many items related to members of the Rancheros Visitadores, including Jack Mitchell, Ed Borein, and Joe De Yong. The 2024 Rancheros ride departed from the Museum. (It also has in its collection Merle's handmade silver-mounted saddle, bridle, and chaps.)
Histories of the early Rancheros Visitadores rides are full of the names of the wealthy and/or famous participants: Walt Disney, actors Ken Maynard, Clark Gable, and Leo Carrillo, Philip K. Wrigley of chewing gum, Chicago Cubs, Catalina Island and Arabian horse breeding fame, Adolfo Camarillo, William A. Patterson, the head of United Airlines, Los Angeles Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, and many others.
By 1936, though, the Rancheros ride roster was made up of more than just the rich and famous. The 3 May 1936 Santa Barbara Morning Press ran all their names:
We see Merle Little on his first ride with the Rancheros, listed in the second section under "Elsewhere."
I'm not sure how Merle became a member of the group; it's possible it was through his friend, the trick roping cowboy Montie Montana, with whom he took part in many equestrian events around California, or through his participation in other groups like the El Rodeo riders and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Posse. Los Angeles Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz was also a member of the Rancheros.
Here, from his scrapbook, are Merle's membership cards from 1937, 1938, and 1939. He left blank spots on the same page with the dates 1936 and 1941 written in.
Merle also saved the booklet outlining the activities for the 1936 ride, written by Elmer Awl:
In 1937, Merle rode an unidentified horse with the Rancheros. He's in the front right side of this photo.
In one of his personal photo albums, Merle tore off the edges of snapshots and glued them onto the black paper pages, and noted the names of some of the other Rancheros. In the center of this snapshot is Philip K. Wrigley; to his right is a man identified as "Mitchell" (I assume it's Jack Mitchell).
An undated photo album page shows a variety of snapshots from an RV ride. Merle wrote "Our camp at Mitchel[l] Ranch" on the photo in the lower right of the page.
The camp photograph shows Merle's truck and a horse trailer. It looks like he may have brought along extra horses for riders who didn't have their own horse, as on this undated photo on the previous page.
In the May 21, 1938 issue of the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, journalist and Los Angeles native Tom Treanor recounted the annual Rancheros trek with attention to detail, as well as candor and humor.
...They called themselves Los Rancheros Visitadores. They traveled by horse and by stagecoach; they feasted, sang and drank. Only they didn't do any work... This year's [ride], the ninth, was the greatest trip of the modern days. Astride $125,000 worth of horses and equipped conservatively with $150,000 worth of cameras, a cavalcade of more than three hundred riders and another hundred in wagons and stagecoaches moved in a great plume of dust from Mission Santa Barbara to Mission Santa Ynez, 57 miles away.
Most rancheros keep their horses at a walk or slow trot the greatest part of the day. There is little running and that generally for the benefit of a cameraman. Within an hour of starting the horses are spread out over two miles.
The stages, pulled by six or four horse teams, are driven by experienced men, not visiting easterners or Hollywood stars. The teams are worked together for several weeks before the trip so there will be no runaways.
Anyone familiar with the cattle rustling country of the movies knows the general appearance of the land the Rancheros ride across. It is in the base California tradition, rugged in the mountains, rich with feed in the valleys and intersected by rivers in the wet season and sandy washes in the dry.
The first day's riding is pretty civilized going. After a midday ceremony at Santa Barbara Mission with the townsfolk gaping about, the cavalcade takes an easy four miles to Rancho Paraiso of Ray Skofield, a New York broker.
The second day is a tough pull of about 25 miles across mile-high San Marcos Pass.
The third day's riding is 24 miles down the Santa Ynez Valley, rolling grass country shaded by hoary oaks festooned with Spanish moss.
The fourth day is spent in camp and on the fifth, Sunday, the party rides five miles to Mission Santa Ynez for the blessing, then disbands.
During each day's trip the beer wagon attempts to keep in the center of the procession. Every hour or so it stops and the party comes together for rest and refreshment.
Because the nights are so cold the party rises early each morning. Breakfast is finished by 8 and at 8:30 the horsemen are on their way. For a country horseback trip the lunches are pretty good. On the third day stopping at the 48,000 San Marcos Ranch [owned at the time by F. W. Matthiesson] the luncheon consisted of Santa Cruz Island abalone chowder, 10 relishes and four pickled fishes; New Orleans prawns; cold roast beef, cold ham, salami, sausage, hard-boiled eggs, several salads, several cheeses, ice cream, milk, buttermilk and beer.
A few streamlined Rancheros brought along electric razors. Quite a few took showers on the fourth day instead of bathing in the sleepy Santa Ynez [River]. But it was still the same marvelous trip out of the past, four days fast traveling, four nights camping and afterwards at least three weeks to get over the stiffness -- a trip for men who ride hard, eat big, sing loud, freeze all night and sweat all day. The weather was warm and clear, the grass was green and tall and the rivers ran so full that the horses sometimes had to swim....
Nights of the Rancheros Visitadores are almost more exhausting than the days. Ten hours of riding sometimes don't take as much out of a man as ten hours of being a jolly good fellow. The four hours of frozen sleep that remain are almost no antidote at all for the accumulated fatigue poisons. The big fun of the first night was the thoroughly professional amateur theatrical. Irvin Cobb, John Boles, Lanny Ross and Leo Carrillo headed the cast. A feature of every night was the old western barroom. At [Mitchell's Rancho] Juan y Lolita it was an especially elaborate establishment, with four barkeeps, a stand for the Mexican musicians, old-fashioned gambling equipment and gaudy posters from Gay Paree. It was here that the double-marshmallow highball was introduced. Two marshmallows mixed with straight scotch won wonderful favor for Earle Zimmerman who brought ten pounds of the marshmallows all the way from Chicago.
After an evening of double marshmallow highballs, its devotees were generally weary. To take care of their metabolism next morning the first serving table in the breakfast line was equipped with various remedies. After restoring themselves they were then fit to sit on the fence rail and watch the rodeo.
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A photograph from the 1938 Rancheros ride,
in Saturday Night magazine, 21 May 1938 |
Rancheros are supposed either to bring their grooms or to look after their horses themselves. Everything is so well organized, however, that about all a Ranchero needed to do was unsaddle, water and tie his horse, no more than a ten-minute chore, and then feel free to pursue his own business. Hay was forked out by hired hands, who also took care of horses which got excited, tangled their ropes or fell to kicking each other... Tents had been set up for them and their bedrolls laid out by a corps of helpers...
A banker with two days' stubble, a motion picture actor in sweat-stained shirt and a judge with a dust-streaked face look pretty much like a cowhand -- a cowhand out of condition, anyway. It was hard to tell what manner of man you were talking to on the Rancheros trip. Under the skin they were celebrities but above the grime they were just saddlesore men who wanted a shower, and there were fewer conveniences for showering than there were for getting a glass of beer.
To ride with the Rancheros costs a regular member $35 and a guest member $50. The admission includes free music all day and most of the night. The Ranchero brings his own bedroll, his borrowed, bought, or rented horse, his toothbrush and soap. The outfit feeds him and his horse, provides free beer and abundance of entertainment. Membership by invitation.
Merle wrote on one of the magazine pages:
"Merle Little, member in good standing 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939."
In his 1939 Rancheros Visitadores ride, Merle rode a Morgan horse: his stallion Sun Down Morgan. This helps mark his slow transition from owning primarily Pinto horses to owning mostly Morgan horses.
Sun Down Morgan deserves his own blog post, so I'll tell his story another time.
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Here are some links for further information. Be sure to check each Museum's operating hours before planning a visit, since not all of them are open to the public seven days a week.
Carriage and Western Art Museum, Santa Barbara:
Santa Barbara Historical Museum:
Santa Ynez Valley Historical Museum:
Here's a biography of Elmer Awl (1889-1993):
And one of Jack Mitchell (1897-1985):
You can set up a free account at the Internet Archive website and "borrow" materials online. Some you can see without having to click the "Borrow for 1 Hour" tab at the top of the page; for others, you'll have to click that button.
Leo Carrillo's book The California I Love contains a chapter on the Rancheros Visitadores:
Kevin Starr's book Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s has some information on the Rancheros Visitadores:
G. William Domhoff's book The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats critiques the Rancheros Visitadores as an organization "which serves the function (whether the originators planned it that way or not) of helping to integrate ranchers and businessmen from different parts of the country into a cohesive social class."
Journalist Tom Treanor is best remembered for his coverage of World War II in the Los Angeles Times. And here he describes the D-Day landing at Normandy Beach for the NBC radio network, in June 1944:
Treanor stayed with the Third Army as it moved through France. He died outside Paris in August 1944, after the Jeep in which he and other journalists were riding collided with an American tank. Treanor is buried in France.
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