P Ranch

The P Ranch is a historic ranch in Harney County in southeastern Oregon, United States. The remaining ranch structures are located on the west bank of the Donner und Blitzen River in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The ranch was built by Peter French, a well known 19th-century cattle baron. The P Ranch became headquarters for the ''French-Glenn Livestock Company'', which eventually covered over . After French was murdered in 1897, the French-Glenn Livestock Company slowly sold off the P Ranch property. In 1935, the United States Government purchased the remaining P Ranch property to add to an adjacent wildlife refuge. The Civilian Conservation Corps demolished most of the original ranch buildings in the 1930s, and a fire destroyed the main ranch house in 1947. The few remaining P Ranch structures are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Early history

Around 9,800 years ago, the Harney Basin was covered by a single great lake covering . The birds, animals, and plants found in the wetland around the lake provided abundant food for early inhabitants. About 3,500 years ago, small villages began to develop around the lakes and along the banks of the river. Beginning about 1,400 years ago, extended droughts began to shrink the lake and surrounding wetlands."The Prehistory of the Malheur Marshes"
Malheur National Wildlife refuge, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of Interior, Princeton, Oregon, 10 November 2008.

While there are no records of the earliest people to inhabit the Harney Basin, Native Americans used the wetland areas around Malheur Lake, Harney Lake, and Donner und Blitzen River for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers. By the time Europeans began to explore the area in the early nineteenth century, the Northern Paiute people were well established in the Harney Basin including the area that became the P Ranch.

Hudson's Bay Company fur trappers were the first Europeans to visit the Harney Basin. Peter Skene Ogden passed along the north shore of Malheur Lake in 1826. Other fur trapping expeditions followed in the 1830s. Several military expeditions passed through the area in the late 1850s. Major Enoch Steen was the first non-native to explore the Donner und Blitzen River area in 1860. Steens Mountain, that dominates southern Harney County, was named in his honor. In the 1860s, the United States Army established a number of military outposts in the Harney Basin."A Little Bit of Malheur History"
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of Interior, Princeton, Oregon, 10 November 2008.

Peter French

Peter French was born in Missouri in 1849. As a boy, he immigrated to California with his family. Then as a young man, French went to work for Doctor Hugh J. Glenn, who owned large tracts of land in the Sacramento Valley. In 1872, Glenn decided to expand his operation into Oregon. To lead the venture, Glenn picked 23-year-old Peter French. French was sent north with six vaqueros and 1,200 head of cattle.Pinyard, David and Donald Peting
"Preservation of the Pete French Round Barn"
, ''CRM Cultural Resources Management'' (Vol. 18, No. 5), National Park Service, United States Department of Interior, Washington, D.C., 1995, pp. 30-32."Peter French"
''The Oregon History Project'', Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Oregon, 2002.McArthur, Lewis A. and Lewis L. McArthur, "Frenchglen", ''Oregon Geographic Names'' (Seventh Edition), Oregon Historical Society Press, Portland, Oregon, 2003, pp. 384-385.

When he arrived in the Blitzen Valley, French ran into a prospector named Porter, who had not found much gold and was eager to move on. French bought Porter's small heard of cattle along with his "P" brand and rights to the west slope of Steens Mountain where Porter had prospected. French settled along the Donner und Blitzen River. Over the next few years, French drained and fenced thousands of acres of wetlands along the river. That land became the P Ranch, which was named for the "P" brand acquired from Porter. By the 1870s, the P Ranch was earning a good income for Glenn. Cattle were raised in the lush P Ranch pastures along the river. In the fall, French drove his cattle to the railhead