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,
Bonanza more season, whereupon Williams found himself pushed out of the part; it was rumored that Landon and Greene felt threatened by the studio initiating a precedent of successfully replacing one heroic leading man Cartwright with a new one, particularly in view of Williams' popularity with viewers. Williams had previously portrayed the titular character in Walt Disney's "Zorro" television series, and went on to play the lead in "Lost in Space", a science fiction television series, after the role in "Bonanza" ended. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati, David Canary was offered a left-end position with the Denver Broncos, but