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,
Bonus Bonanza Bonus Bonanza Bonus Bonanza was the official state lottery game show of Massachusetts, running from 1995 to 1998. It was hosted by Brian Tracey and Dawn Hayes. The show was produced at WCVB-TV by Mark Goodson Production later Jonathan Goodson Productions, and all of its games and its theme were virtually identical to the Illinois state lottery game show "Illinois Instant Riches" (later "Illinois Luckiest"). All audience members wore name tags (a la "The Price Is Right") but only those that earned their way on to the show by means of a Massachusetts lottery ticket were chosen to be in