Montecito Magazine Spring 2019

From 1901 to 1998, Vail & Vickers operated a beef cattle ranch with as many as 9,000 head of cattle on the island at a time. Channel Islands of- ficially became a national park on March 5, 1980. The National Park Service acquired Santa Rosa Island from Vail & Vickers in December 1986, but ranching operations continued until 1998, when all cattle were removed from the island. According to Nita Vail, “Santa Rosa Island was purchased by our great-grandfather Walter L. Vail and his close friend J.V. Vickers in 1901, both men originating from ranching operations in Arizona. My father Al Vail took over as the managing part- ner in the 1960s, a role he held until his passing in 2000.” She continues, “My mother and father met at a party in Beverly Hills (imagine Audrey Hep- burn meets John Wayne) and I doubt she had any clue where her life was headed when they eloped in 1956. She was a model and a writer and loved a good party. A year later she was living on a beau- tiful, often windswept island with an infant (me) 30 miles from the mainland and a long way from her friends and social life. We moved to a house they bought in Santa Barbara about a year later but we [Nita and her mother and younger sister] often traveled back and forth by plane or the cattle boat Vaquero II (see Montecito Magazine , Spring 2018, “The indwall Legacy”) to be with my dad. “I loved spending vacations on the island with my cousins and friends and I cried every time we had to leave. We would drive all over the island in a 4WD pickup truck to our favorite places, swimming, fishing, hiking and exploring, dogs, fishing poles Below, top – The Vaquero II at the Bechers Bay pier—the last operating wooden cattle boat on the Pacific Coast. Legendary Santa Barbara boatbuilder Paul “Sugar” Lindwall built it for Vail & Vickers to ferry cattle to local mainland harbors. The Vaquero II was in service for 40 years and played an important role in island ranching operations. Below, bottom – In the 1860s and 1870s the More family ran a sheep ranch and built a compound at Bechers Bay that included a ranch house, barn and blacksmith shop. These buildings are among the oldest structures in Santa Barbara County and remain as reminders of the island’s history. On the right are the schoolhouse and horse barn (sometimes called the saddle barn), and the branding shed is on the left. Painting © Thomas Van Stein Painting © John Iwerks

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