Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982

Dan Martinez and Bob Humphrey rope calves in Nevada
Dan Martinez and Bob Humphrey rope calves, Quinn River Line Camp, Nevada, June 1978.
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Overview

The Buckaroos in Paradise Collection presents documentation of a Nevada cattle-ranching community, with a focus on the family-run Ninety-Six Ranch. The documentation was largely the work of the Paradise Valley Folklife Project (1978-1982), a research initiative conducted by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. This collection presents 41 motion pictures and 28 sound recordings that tell the story of life and work on the Ninety-Six Ranch and of its cowboys, known in the region as buckaroos. Motion pictures produced from 1945 to 1965 by Leslie Stewart, owner of the Ninety-Six Ranch, are also included. An archive of 2,400 still photographs portrays the people, sites, and traditions on other ranches and in the larger community of Paradise Valley, home to persons of Anglo-American, Italian, German, Basque, Swiss, Northern Paiute Indian, and Chinese heritage. About 2,200 of these photographs were made during the folklife project and about 200 photographs date from 1870 to 1958. Background texts provide historical and cultural context for this distinctive Northern Nevada ranching community.

Essay

Buckaroo: Views of a Western Way of Life

Essay

History of the Ninety-Six Ranch