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,
Flying S Ranch Airport Flying S Ranch Airport Flying S Ranch Airport is a private airport located approximately northeast of Caliente, California. During World War II it was a United States Army Airfield, known as Caliente Flight Strip. It was one of the many Flight Strips which were built by the USAAF during the war for the emergency use of military aircraft. The Caliente Flight Strip was listed on a table of Second Air Force Flight Strips which indicated that construction of the strip was completed in 1943. The strip was described as consisting of a 6,400' paved runway, adjacent to the south side