Ponca City Sees Growing Agri-Tourism by Kirby Lee Davis
The Journal Record
www.journalrecord.com
September 26, 2007
TULSA – An airline pilot once asked Jane Morris just where her historic Big V Ranch was.
“I told him we’re about 100 miles from anywhere,” said Morris, whose family operates the Ponca City landmark. “From Oklahoma City, from Tulsa, from Wichita, from anywhere. That’s to our advantage, because not many places can you go where you’re 100 miles from anywhere, because everything’s growing up very fast.”
With more and more people interested in learning about rural America, the Big V represents one of three agricultural ventures adding a new dimension to the Ponca City tourism market.
In November, the Big V Ranch hopes to reopen its historic 1903 ranch house as a bed and breakfast. To coincide with that, the Big V, Silvertop Farm and the Blubaugh Angus Ranch plan to launch the Cherokee Strip Land Run Farm and Ranch Tours, tapping the growing market for agricultural tourism.
“A lot of the tourism things are just that, more tourism things,” said Scott Blubaugh, one of the operators of the Blubaugh ranch. “We wanted to have an experience where you’d actually come to a working farm and see what goes into actually raising the crops and the animals, the real deal. I think that’s what’s unique about the whole thing.”
Silvertop also is drawing up plans to add a vineyard, hoping to produce its first bottled wines by 2010.
“Our farm was really planted on the principal of diversified agriculture,” said Mary Steichen, an attorney and daughter to Silvertop matriarch Ruth Steichen. “This facility lends itself to adding some sort of orchard product. We definitely think it’s a growing market.”
All of that will enhance a city that already offers tourists the chance to see oil baron E.W. Marland’s grand home and estate home, the 101 Ranch areas, the Pioneer Woman Statue and Museum, the Standing Bear Statue and Standing Bear Native American Memorial Park, among others.
Ponca City Chamber of Commerce Tourism Coordinator Mary Beth Moore said the city’s 12 major attractions are gathering increasing attention, boosted by several weekend events that capped “Celebrate Ponca City Month.”
“Ponca City is shooting for tourists,” said Morris. “We just realized we have some opportunities here.”
All three ranches lie within a five-minute trip of each other, said Blubaugh, whose ancestors came to Oklahoma in the 1893 land run. With Silvertop touting two types of sheep, Blubaugh and Big V raising cattle, and all three harvesting land under cultivation, he said the family operations provide abundant tourism opportunities.
“We all have something a little different to offer,” he said. “We all have working operations that on any given day we have activities, from harvesting to bailing to lambing.
“We think of what we do out here as monotonous work, ordinary,” he said. “To a lot of people from different cultures and metropolitan areas, it’s a whole new experience.”
Many of their plans remain to be finalized, including rate structures and operating hours.
“We’re all at the point that we’re moving on our projects but we’re not all at the up and running process,” said Steichen, a co-owner of Silvertop. “We’re all kind of looking to get everything up and running by the middle of November.”
The bed and breakfast will provide the centerpiece, allowing the tour joint venture to provide overnight stays in a working farm environment.
As the homestead for the nation’s largest mule dealer from 1907 to 1912, Morris said the three-story Big V ranch house accommodated not just William Vanselous, wife and four children, but the hired hands for the 10,000-acre ranch.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the 3,500-square-foot home and neighboring mule barn had fallen into disrepair when Morris acquired the 6-acre property in February for $125,000.
“They sold mules even to the British army,” Morris said of the ranch’s early days. “That’s why the mule barn is an interesting aspect to the ranch house.”
Seeing its potential, in March the Morris family launched what has become a $500,000 renovation of the Victorian structure, with the help of Tulsa architect John Brooks Walton.
“The original wiring was still in the house,” said Morris, referring to the battery lighting system installed 104 years ago. Their renovation has modernized not only those bygone electronics – “we put $70,000 just in the electrical system,” she said – but upgraded the environmental and plumbing systems, adding five bathrooms to the original one.
“That was quite an ordeal,” she said of the project. “It’s almost harder than building a house from scratch.”
When finished, the attic where the ranch hands once slept will be converted into four bunk-style rooms capable of sleeping three or four each. The second level, where the family once slept, will offer two suites and a single bedroom.
“We figure we could sleep 21 if they were good friends, so that they can all sleep together,” said Morris.
The mule barn will serve as an entertainment center, hosting everything from hoedowns to birthday parties.
“We started this with our heart; now it’s turned into something more,” said Morris. “We’ve got quite an asset here. We probably need to use it to educate people on some history.” Steichen hopes these developments also nurture a stronger community interest in agriculture.
“One aspect we feel is really lacking now is that people don’t know where food comes from in the grocery store,” she said. “We hope to connect people with that appreciation for agriculture.”
The ranchers also foresee bottom-line benefits, both for the community and their operations. Across the nation, many farms have developed agricultural tourism sidelines into revenue streams.
“It’s a little hard to project,” said Blubaugh. “I don’t think we have a good idea of how busy we’ll be or how fast it will grow as yet. We’re hoping that is the case.”
Reprinted in The Business-Examiner Enterprise
www.examiner-enterprise.com
9-30-2007