The enclosed corral built by cattleman Pete French in 1883 or 1884 ca. 50 miles SE of Burns is, today, unique among utilitarian structures in the state. In French’s livestock operation, nearly 300 head of horse and mule colts were foaled each year. Some of the horses and mules were sold, but most were kept to work the spread. Used for exercising and training horses during the winter, the barn was-placed on high rangeland for drainage purposes. It is believed to have been the largest of three similar enclosed corrals once standing in Harney County, and it is the only one to have survived intact. Another was sited on French’s “P” Ranch and was torn down in the 1920s. A third was located on the Three Mile Ranch in Catlow Valley.
The Barton Lake Ranch barn is 100 feet in diameter and encloses a masonry corral 64 feet in diameter and a 16-foot wide circular paddock inside the containing wall. In the dry weather of the High Desert country, the barn has remained in good condition, generally. In 1918, the conical roof was recovered with nearly 50,000 cedar shingles.
The masonry corral stands about 9 feet high. The first four of approximately 18-courses of stone were carefully laid up. The remainder were laid somewhat more hastily and chinked with mud. Doorways and openings in the corral wall are simply framed with 6 x 24-inch lumber. The paddock, or containing wall of studs and horizontal planks is covered with boards and battens. To mark an entryway on the northeast, a gable was built over a sector of the roof.
The most striking feature of the interior is the roof support system. The frame is carried by trusses attached to plates atop the corral wall and by 14 peeled juniper poles, which describe a circle inside the corral. Braces radiating in umbrella fashion from the center pole, also a juniper tree, support the apex of the cone. The barn is 25 feet in height at this point, roughly equivalent to a three-story building.
The source of milled lumber for the construction is not documented, but the lumber is reported to have been hauled from Fort Bidwell in California, or the Robie sawmill north of Burns where timber was available.
In California, around 1870, the old Mexican land grants were breaking up and cattlemen looked for open rangeland into which they might expand. Return of U. S. Army regulars to Oregon after the War Between the States appeared to remove |
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the threat of Indian uprisings East of the Cascades, and the Basin-Range area north of the California border began to be investigated.
The setting of one of the most extensive ranching operations established in Oregon as a result of this outreach was the grass lands of the Blitzen Valley in Harney County. The Donner and Blitzen River drains the Steens Mountain (actually a massive fault scarp 9,000 feet in elevation) into Lake Malheur.
“Pete” French was born John William French on a small sheep farm near Red Bluff, California in 1849. He was foreman for the powerful Sacramento Valley wheat rancher Dr. Hugh James Glenn, when, in 1872, he and six Mexican vaqueros were instructed to ride north with 1200 head of Shorthorn cows, some bulls, horses and stores to transplant Glenn’s livestock operation to Southern Oregon.
French selected the Blitzen Valley, acquired land and equipment, hauled lumber, raised buildings and erected fences. Through draining and irrigating and creative management, he improved both the land and his cattle. He is credited with being one of the first big cattlemen of the West to breed beef toward the consumer’s taste. His steers were driven some 200 miles to Winnemucca, Nevada, where they were classed on the market among the “reputation brands.”
In 1883 Dr. Glenn was killed, and the French-Glenn Livestock Company was formed by Pete French and Dr. Glenn’s heirs. At about this time, the Barton Lake Ranch barn was erected for the purpose of working horses during the bitterly cold winters. The barn is known to have been completed and in use in 1884.
Before French’s own murder in 1897, the Livestock Company controlled more than 130,000 acres of land, 30,000 head of cattle, 3,000 horses and mules; water-holes, streams and vantage points. The combined holdings were known by the name of “P” Ranch. After the “P” Ranch headquarters burned in 1946, the Round Barn at Barton Lake became the most potent surviving landmark of the Pete French era.
Today, a major portion of the former. “P” Ranch is administered by the Bureau of Sports Fisheries and Wildlife as Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The rest is under mixed ownership, predominantly private. The Round Barn, recently acquired by the Oregon Historical Society to be restored and maintained as a historic feature, falls within an area of private ownership. |