Lyons & Campbell Cattle Company: Irrigated Ranching and the Transformation of Grant County

A range description published that June noted “Lyons & Campbell’s south pipe line” as a landmark along a route that threaded through the Burro Mountains, Mangas, and Duck Creek ^[9]. The firm’s holdings soon expanded to include the Mule Springs division of the L‑C Ranch, a property known locally as the “White House” Ranch on Duck Creek; according to later tradition, John W. (Jack) Fleming had won that ranch on a horse race, kept it about three years, and then sold it to the L‑C Cattle Company ^[13]. By February 1891, the Lyons & Campbell Cattle Company had about 400 acres seeded in alfalfa on Duck Creek and the Gila, with plans to plant several hundred acres more that year as well as a large amount of corn ^[1][5]. The firm also constructed an artificial lake on Duck Creek that contemporary observers called “probably the finest body of water in New Mexico”; during windy weather waves rolled as high as three feet, causing repeated trouble with the dam, so the company planted willows and cottonwoods along the embankment for protection ^[1][5]. The lake—and its surrounding hills and valleys—was described as “one of the most beautiful spots in the Gila river valley,” and by early 1891 it was soon to be stocked with black bass, croppies, and sun perch ^[11].

Peck brought out a carload of brood hogs from Kansas that were placed on an alfalfa ranch at Duck Creek by Lyons & Campbell, indicating an interest in diversified livestock ^[6]. That same spring, Angus Campbell, likely a partner in the firm, brought a bunch of alfilaria—a native California grass—to the *Enterprise* office, noting that it had been grown on the pipe line ranch without irrigation and that it made splendid feed, an early experiment in dryland forage ^[8]. Campbell—had performed spaying work on cattle for Vic Culbertson of the GOS outfit on the Sapello, a technique that Culbertson praised for its low mortality rate ^[7].

By July 1891, Lyons & Campbell were feeding five or six hundred head of choice three-year-old steers on their Gila alfalfa ranch ^[3][10]. Lyons believed that by September they would average about 1,300 pounds and be ready for market ^[4][10]. The plan was to ship them to Chicago, where they would probably bring from $65 to $75 each—a dramatic improvement over the $18 or $20 the same animals would have fetched four weeks earlier ^[4][10]. Contemporary commentators saw this as proof of “the great advantage of alfalfa farming in connection with cattle growing” ^[4].

C. range ^[2][12]. C. and San Vicente ranges, thereby removing nearly all available beef cattle and leaving the range free for the stock cattle of both companies ^[2][12]. As part of the transaction, Lyons & Campbell announced they would try an experiment in shipping steers to Montana to fatten on northern ranges ^[2].

C. range, and the San Vicente range—formed an integrated system that moved animals from open range to irrigated pastures and finally to railhead ^[2][3]. The use of an artificial lake to store irrigation water on Duck Creek demonstrated what could be accomplished in an arid country; the *Enterprise* noted that with that body of water the company would soon be able to reclaim several hundred acres of desert land “which for fertility cannot be excelled in any country” ^[5].