Ponderosa Ranch high in the Sierra Nevada, with a large ranch house in the center of it. Ben Cartwright was said to have built the original, smaller homestead after moving from New Orleans with his pregnant third wife Marie and his two sons, Adam and Hoss. The grown Adam, an architect/engineer, designed the later sprawling ranch house as depicted on TV ("Bonanza, The Philip Diedesheimer Story", Oct. 31, 1959, NBC-TV; "Bonanza: The Return", April 1993, NBC-TV). The fictional ranch was roughly a two-hour horse ride from Virginia City, Nevada. (Note: There are slight variations as to the origin of the Ponderosa Ranch,
U Lazy S Ranch U Lazy S Ranch The U Lazy S Ranch, formerly known as the Square and Compass Ranch, is a historic ranch in Garza County, Texas, USA. The ranch was established as the Square and Compass Ranch in 1884. By 1901, when it was acquired by John Bunyan Slaughter, the ranch spanned 99,188 acres. Slaughter also purchased 5,000 cattle and brought 6,000 head of cattle he already owned. Additionally, he changed the name to his cattle brand, 'U Lazy S', which he had registered during the American Civil War. He built a ranchhouse in 1902 and acquired more acres, owning up