Across The Fence: A big barn and bigger dreams

In the boom days of Kearney, Neb., during the late 1880s, Henry David Watson embarked on what was quite possibly one of the grandest agricultural undertakings ever attempted on the Great Plains.

The year 1888 marked the beginning of H. D. Watson's grandiose and historic Watson Ranch. Watson had come west from Greenfield, Massachusetts and partnered with George W. Frank, a prominent New York doctor turned speculator, who had purchased large land holdings from the U.P. Railroad. Frank helped to establish the Phil Kearney Ranch and invested in thoroughbred horses. The partnership was short-lived and when the business venture ended H.D. Watson was left with significant holdings and made the ranch his primary focus for the future. At its peak, the Watson Ranch consisted of more than 8,000 acres from the Platte Valley northward to the hills and extending westward for a distance of five miles from the town of Kearney.

The years between 1890 and 1896 were years of drought across the Midwest and on the central plains. Failed crops and reduced forage took a heavy toll on livestock, and future prospects, for those who made their livelihood off the land, were dismal. Watson quickly realized that the alfalfa plants he had been cultivating were hardy enough to withstand the effects of drought and made excellent feed for livestock. Although the plant had been used in Persia since before 500 B.C. it was not introduced to the western United States until the first seeds arrived in California from Chile in the 1850s but it was still relatively unknown in the central plains in the 1890s. At that time, alfalfa was being experimented with in the southeastern regions of the continent but growers had met with little success.

It would appear that Watson was, at the very least, an amateur horticulturalist who experimented with various crops and their adaptability to the climate in the Platte Valley.

Perhaps Mr. Watson had studied the many volumes of the Greek writer Palladius who wrote "Opus Agriculturae" in the 4th Century A.D. In his writings, Palladius briefly mentions medica (alfalfa) saying: "One sow-down lasts 10 years. The crop may be cut four or six times a year ... A jugerum (0.623 acres) of it is abundantly sufficient for three horses all the year ... It may be given to cattle, but new provender is at first to be administered very sparingly, because it bloats up the cattle."

The crop was brought to Spain around 800 AD by Arab invaders and was called by its Arabic name, "alfasfasa," meaning "the best fodder," it was subsequently called alfalfa by the Spanish. On the merits of this so-called "best fodder" Watson would pin his hopes for the future success of the Watson Ranch.

In 1893, Watson planted 15 acres of alfalfa that he used to feed his own livestock. By increasing the number of acres under production in the following years the Watson Ranch harvested 3,000 tons of alfalfa in 1896. Watson intended to use part of the crop for his own livestock, and sell what he could not use to other farmers and ranchers in the area. However, his expectations met with disappointment when no one would buy what he had to sell. Skeptical livestock owners claimed the plant would kill their horses and that cattle would not eat it. Watson's first sale came in 1897 when he sold 1,000 tons of new-cut alfalfa to a sheep feeder for $3 a ton and also gave the feeder all of the excess hay still in stacks from the previous years.

With more hay than he could use and no place to store the excess it would seem logical that Watson would reduce production. However, determined to prove the viability and nutritional worth of this new forage, Watson expanded his production of the crop and set out to build an expansive dairy where only alfalfa would be fed. Eventually his alfalfa fields covered 3,000 acres, which by Palladius' calculations would produce enough forage to feed more than 14,000 horses for an entire year.

To begin his dairy operations Watson bought a train carload of registered Holsteins from the Iowa State Agricultural College. This carload would be the beginning of a herd of milk cows that would eventually grow in size to more than 400.

To accommodate the dairy operation and provide storage space for the abundant alfalfa crop Watson needed a barn. Enlisting the architectural aid of Ohio State University's Professor Oscar Erf, a barn was designed to house a 1,200-cow operation and to store the required hay for year-round feed. The original design was a structure nearly 1,000 feet long, 100 feet wide and 56 feet tall. The ground level floor would contain milking stanchions for the planned 1,200 cows as well as room for equipment, horses, calves and other necessities of a dairy operation. The barn would be built into a hillside making the middle floor accessible at ground level on the east side so that hay wagons could be driven into the barn for unloading. Haying equipment and other machinery could be stored there as well and the loft would be filled with hay. Feed from the loft would be delivered by special trolley cars and the inevitable waste would be removed in similar fashion.

Watson intended to build the entire structure at the beginning but Professor Erf convinced him that a more conservative approach might be better. At the professors recommendation only one-third of the proposed barn was built in 1900. The barn would become known as the world's largest barn at nearly 400 feet in length, 100 feet wide and 56 feet tall, as tall as a five-story building. The loft held upwards of 900 tons of hay and a silo, attached at the north end of the barn held an additional 1,000 tons of feed. To complete the dairy operation a creamery was added and the milk products produced were sold. The Union Pacific Railroad was the creamery's largest customer, serving Watson's Dairy products in the dining cars of every passenger train on the line.

Eventually area farmers began to recognize the value of feeding alfalfa to their own livestock and sales of alfalfa increased. However, production techniques on the Watson Ranch were inefficient and there was neither equipment nor manpower enough to harvest the huge number of acres that were producing. The result of such inadequate management resulted in substantial and expensive waste. To help with reducing the waste, feeding operations were conducted at the ranch with cattle and sheep being brought in from ranches farther west to be fattened for market on the abundant alfalfa.

Poultry was also a part of the operation with a three-story chicken house built to house the hens. Included in the raising of fowl, it was Watson who introduced the Chinese (Ring-necked) Pheasant to the midwest.

In its heyday, in addition to the alfalfa fields, rotation crops of corn and wheat accounted for several thousands of acres and seed raising of alfalfa was responsible for the spread of alfalfa production throughout the entire state of Nebraska. Vegetables, including potatoes, corn, squash, cucumbers, melons and other garden crops, including celery, were raised on the ranch both as produce for market, but also to feed the families that were employed on the ranch. Single employees bunked on the upper floor of the 40-room ranch house and married employees lived in one of the 15 small homes built on the property. The ranch kept upwards of 45 employees for operations.

Fruit orchards were another aspect of the ranch and thousands of fruit trees, cherry, apple, peach and plum were planted along the hills to the north and production was as good as anywhere in the country. Large crowds would gather annually for the 'cherry picking day' at the ranch. Pick your own for $1.50 a bushel or buy a pre-picked bushel for $2.50. One such event brought more than 1,500 people to the ranch and 625 bushels of cherries were picked that day.

Despite its grandeur, the huge, diversified and mismanaged operation was not sustainable. In 1903, the creamery was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. By 1907, Watson was bankrupt and in 1911, the Kearney Daily Hub advertised an auction at the Watson Ranch – the largest farm sale ever held in central Nebraska.

In June 1917, the Manchester National Bank of Manchester, N.H., who held the substantial mortgage on the Watson Ranch, sold the heart of the ranch, consisting of 4,400 acres and including all of the buildings. The new owners renamed the world famous ranch the 1733 Ranch. The name was given due to the location of the ranch near the recently completed, first transcontinental highway, Highway 30. At the site where the original ranch house had been built, it was 1,733 miles to San Francisco and 1,733 miles to Boston.

In 1935, the world's largest barn, the landmark of a man whose dreams were larger than life, was deemed to be unsafe and in March of that year it was torn down.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award-winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. Reach him via email at: [email protected]