Jess Ranch
11000 Apple Valley Road
Jess Ranch, named after Stoddard Jess, the
original turkey farmer, has a varied history covering over 90
years.
Stoddard’s uncle, Dr. Harris Garcelon, and
his wife homesteaded the original 160 acres around 1910. They
advertised the ranch as an ideal climate to cure asthma and
tuberculosis during the early 1900s, and then as a sanitarium for
World War I shell-shock victims. He built the first hospital in the
entire valley, treated patients for barter, and drove his buggy for
miles to deliver babies and visit patients. He later built a guest
ranch where early cowboy movies were filmed, including Tom Mix and
Williams S. Hart films. Dr. Garcelon had a vision of his ranch as a
masterplanned community, with a golf course, swimming pool and
more. Architectural plans dated 1926 can be seen in the Jess Ranch
sales office today. However, the Great Depression put an end to
those plans, and Stoddard Jess, Harry’s nephew, bought the
ranch in 1932.
Stoddard teamed up with neighbor Gay Lewis, who
homesteaded his property in 1901, and began a turkey farming
operation that would span 50 years. From a modest start of 200
turkeys, Jess Ranch became one of the largest integrated turkey
ranches in the Western United States, raising nearly one million
turkeys a year. Ranch operations covered everything from laying the
eggs to packaging and shipping the turkeys to consumers.
Wanting to make maximum use of his water rights,
Stoddard built a series of 19 impound lakes. The lakes were used to
farm rainbow trout, raising about 500,000 pounds of live and
dressed trout for Southern California markets, as well as offering
fishing at the angling ponds. The water, fortified by the presence
of fish, also served as a nutrient-rich irrigation source for
agricultural uses on almost 1500 acres of ranch land. Using the
most advanced technology and methods available, Stoddard produced
his own turkey grain pellets made from the alfalfa and other grains
he raised.
Falling victim to the energy crisis and the many
farm conglomerates springing up throughout the country, the ranch
began losing money in the early 1970s. Jess Ranch ceased turkey
production in 1977, and closed the trout farming operation at the
end of 1994.
Rather than selling the land for a regular
subdivision, Stoddard sought out a developer that would develop his
land as a master-planned retirement community. Opened in 1986 as a
gated community for people 55 and over, Jess Ranch today also
includes adjacent retail and entertainment centers, non-senior
estate homes and an RV resort park. Dr. Garcelon’s dream of a
resort community was realized with the opening of the golf course
in 1993. The Jess Ranch Lakes are still open four days a week for
fishing, stocked with trout and catfish, and trout farming was
reinstated in 2000.
- From the brochure Historical Points of Interest in
AppleValley
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