MI 150499

McNew ranch
I believe that it was around 1875 when Elie Clawson, a mountain man, stretched a bull hide up in a cluster of oak trees to form a lean-to where Salt Creek empties into Camp Creek. The place was called the Bull Hide Camp until 1879 when "William A. Wright located his homestead there. Wright built his cabin a snort distance up stream from the Bull Hide Camp and on the west side of Camp Creek at a place where his brother, John H. Wright, had camped for a time with the intentions of taking out a homestead. 'William A. Wright began at once to build his homestead into a cattle ranch. From 1879 to 1913 he accomplished many things that most men would think could not be done.
He was married in about 1885 and reared a family of six children. He fenced his one hundred and sixty acre homestead, he leased an adjoining section of land and built a fence around it, he bought and fenced a school section of land in Skookum Gulch, he located a timber claim of one hundred and forty acres cornering on the school section and built a fence around it also. He built three barns and other buildings, built corrals, dug three ditches to take water from Camp Creek, cleared enough land to raise alfalfa hay for three hundred head of cattle, and built the necessary roads and trails that were required. In those days every thing was done the hard way.
In 1890 Wright and Purl Bean hunted down and killed the cattle killing grizzly known as Reelfoot. The bear had for many years raided the cattle herds and the cattlemen banded together and offered a reward of twenty seven hundred dollars to any one killing the bear. In those days that was a big sum of money. After Wright and Bean killed the bear they had him mounted and traveled around in southern Oregon and Northern California with the bear. They charged ten cents per person for people to see the bear. After a year or two of traveling they sold the bear for five hundred dollars.
During the late eighteen nineties Wright went to Alaska with several others to look for gold and he was gone about twenty months. The party experienced great hardships in the Yukon country where they were snowed in. Because of the scarcity of proper food a number of the party became sick and died.
Wright sold the ranch and cattle, in about 1913, to Walker and Marsac. They operated a much larger ranch near Fort Jones, Calif. After a couple of years Charles W. Marsac bought James A. Walker's interest in the Wright Ranch. Walker bought Marsac's interest in the ranch near Fort Jones. While Marsac had the ranch he bought the section of land that 'Wright had leased and fenced several years before. Marsac replaced the old house with a larger and more modern house in the same location. In about 1918 the Marsac family moved to Yreka to live. For several years the ranch was owned by the Montague Banking Company and during part of that time Clifton H . Walker had a lease on the ranch. Walker was in the cattle business with his headquarters at Edgewood, California. He leased the ranch until about 1925. For the next three or four years the ranch was the home and camping place for horse wranglers, trappers, and moonshiners. During this time it was a tough joint sometimes and none too tame at any time.
I believe that around 1928 or a little later the Montague Banking Company sold the ranch to the Crabtree brothers.
A few years later or around in the mid thirties or later A. B. Madero bought the ranch from a bank in Yreka. In about 1946 Madero sold to Louis Louchetti and Son. Louchetti had the ranch for about two years and sold in about 1948 to Mr. and Mrs. McNew. In about 1950 Lewis Brody and Mrs. Brody bought the ranch and own it at this writing. All down through the years from 1875, or before the ranch has gone by many different names. The names have been: The Bull Hide Camp, The Wright Ranch, The Marsac Ranch, The Crabtree Ranch, The Louchetti Ranch, and the McNew Ranch. The last names however, will probably give way to another name when people start calling it the Brody Ranch.