1867

Our story begins with the founder of Fee Ranch and legendary patriarch of the Fee family, James Fee. James Fee was born in 1837 in Carnmoney, County Antrim, Ireland to John and Eliza Fee. Alone and at only 16 years old James crossed the Atlantic to New York at the end of the Potato Famine. James left New York and traveled to Iowa where he acquired the skills needed to achieve the American dream. He learned to be a surveyor, carpenter, stockman, and farmer, skills which were vitally important to his success as a first generation rancher.

James left for Pennsylvania, but shortly afterward returned to Iowa where he met and married Martha Combes in 1861. Two years later James continued west but without Martha, traveling by ship through the Isthmus of Panama to California. Family lore holds that his younger brother, Robert, joined him on that journey.

From California James ventured to Virginia City, NV, where he had a freight line running over the Sierra Nevadas to Placerville, CA. In 1864 Martha and their 9 month old son crossed the great plains by stagecoach to reunite with James. That trip lasted 18 days and nights, with Martha, her baby, and ten others being beaten nearly to death by the rough wagon roads. On the last leg of the journey, going up Geiger Grade, the coach tipped and threw Martha and her baby out. She held on and protected her baby but hit her head on a rock and suffered a deep gash.

James and Martha reunited in Virginia City and stayed long enough to have another son. Tragically, the couple ended up burying both boys before moving on to Truckee Meadows where their third child, Annie, was born. The boys names and the location of their graves are lost to history.

In Truckee Meadows the Fees met the folks that would soon become their neighbors in Surprise Valley. Among them were the Sessions, Ross, Munroe, and Steele families. In 1864, the Sessions, Steeles, and Symonds grubstaked Ross and Munroe to locate land in Surprise Valley. They filed homestead claims, and in 1867 James and Martha purchased the land Steele had claimed which would ultimately become the beginning of Fee Ranch.

James, Martha, and their daughter Annie traveled from Truckee Meadows in June of 1867 to settle on their land in Surprise Valley, California. Soon after arrival they began increasing their land holdings, building their first cabin, the ranch infrastructure, and horse and cattle herds. Frank Fee was born a year after they arrived, then they had Aggie, and finally Ernest. Ern Fee would go on to be the next manager of Fee Ranch due to Frank's early demise from a horse accident.

James, Ernest, and the following generations would go on to purchase and sell land in northeast California, northwest Nevada, and southeast Oregon. The horses have changed, the cattle have improved, and the sheep have come and gone, but in spite of all the years and challenges, the Fee family has never sold all way out of cattle. Thus, our cattle herd still retains some genetics from the very beginning in 1867. Though the ranch headquarters is not at the same address, we still run on the same land, the same rocky canyons and juniper covered hills, as we did in the beginning. Fee Ranch has always been owned and operated by the same family, and we do everything we can to ensure it remains so for many generations to come.