Buffalo Ranch facts for kids
Buffalo Ranch was a special place in what is now Newport Beach, California. It was a tourist attraction, like a theme park, but focused on buffalo! It covered about 115 acres (0.47 km2) of land. Gene Clark from The Irvine Company and a grandson of the famous chief Geronimo helped run it. This ranch was important because it was the very first business not owned by The Irvine Company to be allowed on their land.
The ranch started with 72 buffalo, and soon, many more were born. To make the ranch feel more real, several Native American families from Kansas were invited to live and work there. They would perform different tribal dances for the visitors. Today, a road called Bison Road connects Jamboree and MacArthur roads in Newport Beach. This road was originally built just to get to Buffalo Ranch!
The Ranch Becomes a Planning Office
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Buffalo Ranch had to close down. This happened because the cost of land in the area was getting very high. Around the same time, a new university, the University of California, Irvine, was being planned nearby. The Irvine Company hired a famous architect named William Pereira to design the university campus. They also asked him to plan the entire city of Irvine around it.
Pereira loved old barns and enjoyed fixing them up. So, he took the empty barn from Buffalo Ranch, which was at the corner of MacArthur and Ford Road. He turned it into his office for planning the new city! He called this office "Urbanus Square." It was in this old barn that many of the plans for both Irvine and Newport Beach were created.
What Happened Later
After William Pereira and his team finished their work and left, the old barn stayed on the street corner. It became a well-known landmark for people driving by. However, in the 1990s, the barn was torn down to make room for new homes called the Bonita Canyon housing development.
Today, if you visit that street corner, you'll see a large bronze statue of a buffalo. There's also a big plaque in front of it that tells the story of Buffalo Ranch and its history.
Even though the main barn was torn down, parts of it were saved! A section of the barn, including a tall silo that Pereira had used as a special viewing platform, was moved. You can still see it today at Centennial Farm, which is part of the Orange County Fair & Exposition Center. Also, the main part of the barn was rebuilt in Newport Beach. You can find it at the corner of Irvine Avenue and Holiday Road.
