R. Doug Wicker — Author

The Rimrock Cliffs that give Indian Cliff Ranch its name

There are two main areas here at Indian Cliffs Ranch.  The primary area is home to the Cattleman’s Steakhouse, zoo, and various other features and attractions.  Here’s a map (click to enlarge; map key posted below):

Indian Cliffs Ranch — Cattleman’s Steakhouse tour area

1. The world-famous CATTLEMAN’s STEAKHOUSE
2. Bus and R.V. Parking
3. Game Bird Pens
4. Administration, Party Sales
5. HORSEMAN’s CLUB Party Facility
6. HEADQUARTERS Party Facility
7. Private Tackroom and Horse area
8. Hayride Loading Area
9. Western Town and Donkey Rides
10. Private Horse Corrals
11. Team Horses, Buffalo, Long Horns, Cattle
12. Party Parking Areas and Departure Point for FORT MISERY, Movie sets
13. Covered Wagon Camp
14. Resurrection Movie Set, CONCESSIONS
15. Children’s Zoo and Snake Pit
16. HOPI PAVILLION Party Facility
17. Indian Maze
18. ZUNI PAVILLION Party Facility
19. FORT APACHE Children’s Playground
20. Restrooms and Support Facilities
21. THE WESTERN BARN Party Facility
22. VIP – Horse Hotel
23. Old Wagon Shop and Maintenance
24. LA CANTINA Party Facility
25. Windmill, Handicapped Parking for Zoo
26. Lover’s Roost Lookout
27. Treasure Island
28. Lakewalk and Gristmill
29. Ram and Deer Corral
30. Clay Canyon Lake
31. Meat Aging Locker and Tree Nursery

Both before and after the zoo, Ursula and I spent some time wandering around the steakhouse side of the road.  Here you’ll see Old West-style buildings:

The broad side of the barn people keep telling me that I can’t hit when I’m shooting

There is also a collection of other Old West items, including mining equipment:

Mining Equipment

And what looks to be an Old West storefront is actually a set used in the 1980 Ellen Burstyn motion picture Resurrection:

Set piece for “Resurrection” starring Ellen Burstyn

Now for the hayride:

Not the hayride

Just kidding.  That isn’t it.

Just outside the zoo at Indian Cliffs it was time to catch the “Hayride,” which involves no wagon, zero hay, and an unexpected source of horsepower.  This contraption is a tractor-pulled canvas-covered trailer affair that exits the Cattleman’s Restaurant area, crosses the road, and takes visitors on a tour into the desert.  Here you feel transported back in time.

The view from the “Hayride”

If you look carefully below you’ll see an anachronism totally out of place in the Wild, Wild West, but we’ll get into that piece of hardware and its significance on Friday:

Indian Cliffs

For the rest of this blog post I’ll just sit back and let you bath in the surrounding desert beauty and the nearby Rimrock Cliffs:

Indian Cliffs

Desert brush and Indian Cliffs

Mesquite trees

Indian Cliffs Ranch Zoo

The history of the Old West is inextricably linked to the cattle of the Old West, as well as the American Bison.  And since Indian Cliffs Ranch enjoys capitalizing on their Wild West image, you just know they had to have examples on site.

Posing for a Buffalo Head Nickel?

There are today about a half million American Bison in North America today, of which only 15,000 are free-roaming animals in the wild.

American Bison, a.k.a., “Buffalo”

But compare that to numbers in the 18th Century — 60 million.  By 1840 that number had dwindled to 35 million, and just forty years later less than 400,000 remained.

Bison calf lazing about with mom

In just one ten-year period — from 1870 to 1880 — 93% of North American’s Bison were killed off.  Numbers dropped to 395,000 from 5.5 million just a decade before.

American Bison

At the dawn of the 20th Century only 300 of these creatures remained.

American Bison

Then there are the animals of the American ranching industry from the 1800s, beginning with the iconic Texas Longhorn:

Texas Longhorn

Another example of Old West ranching is the American Brahman, a breed that originated with cattle imported from India in the 1850s.

American Brahman

Don’t think that the Indian Cliffs Ranch Zoo only houses cattle and bison, however.  There are other animals here as well.  Animals important to other forms of ranching popular in South and Central America.

¿Como se llama, amigo?

Sleepy-eyed

Join my next week and we’ll take the Indian Cliffs “Hayride” tour of a stone ranch house straight out of the 1880s, and even visit a movie set where Indian Cliffs Ranch subbed for Iraq.