Marble Mountain Ranch, offering northern California Dude Ranch vacations, is surrounded by a half a million acres of Klamath National Forest. The Ranch is sandwiched between the western edge of the Marble Mountain Wilderness and the Klamath River. The extremely wet winters, temperate summers, and varied geologic formations of this area produce one of North America's most biologically diverse and thriving forests.
Operating as both a guest/dude ranch and a conference facility, Marble Mountain Ranch is the ideal location for your next pack trip retreat, group meeting site, or family vacation. Join us on a tour of the Ranch and explore the possibilities for your next "escape".
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The recorded history of the Ranch begins in the 1860's when Samuel Stanshaw claimed water and mining rights to establish the Stanshaw Mining Company. Though not considered to be a highly productive site, mining operations did attract Chinese immigrants to the Ranch to provide manual labor for the construction of diverse water canals. Later, pioneer settlers came to establish cattle grazing and conventional ranch operations.
After harvesting the more easily accessed gold deposits, Mr. Stanshaw leased the mining operations to the same Chinese laborers who had developed the water diversion system. In his lease, Mr. Stanshaw states that "the Indians across the river are to be left alone and not bothered" and that "all meat and eggs must be purchased from the ranch." We are given a glimpse of the entrepreneurial spirit of the times but precious little about the native inhabitants who thrived in the vicinity of the Ranch.
Because of the unique location of the Ranch, in an isolated and sometimes harsh area of the great northwest, it also served as a staging and supply depot for early packers and travelers moving through the Klamath River and Salmon River basins. The Ranch, in the 1900's, has been the home of logging operations, a blacksmith shop, a feed store, a banking facility, a one-room school house, and a home for members of the U.S. Forest Service.
Early in the history of this area, the potential for recreational use was explored and the Ranch evolved from a homestead ranch to housing facility to fish camp to R.V. park and finally to a guest ranch. During your stay at the Ranch, you will see the original water diversions that now provide a more precious form of gold in the form of hydroelectric power for the Ranch. You will see giant water cannons (monitors) that once washed away mountains of material, numerous relics from past logging and agricultural operations on the Ranch, our 100-plus year old barn and home, the original feed and hay store, and, if you listen carefully with mind and heart, you might just hear and see the legends of the Karuk, original inhabitants of the surrounding forest.
