Bonanza series's long run. In 2002, "Bonanza" was ranked No. 43 on "TV Guide"s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and in 2013 "TV Guide" included it in its list of The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time. The time period for the television series is roughly between 1861 (Season 1) and 1867 (Season 13) during and shortly after the American Civil War. During the summer of 1972, NBC aired reruns of episodes from the 1967–1970 period in prime time on Tuesday evening under the title Ponderosa. The show chronicles the weekly adventures of the Cartwright family, headed by the
Bonanza Kings Bonanza Kings The Bonanza Kings, also called the Silver Kings, was a nickname given to the four men who started a stock brokerage called "Flood and O'Brien", more commonly known as the Bonanza Firm. Bonanza is a Spanish term, meaning a rich ore body; in 1873, after gaining control of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, they discovered a large vertical ore body more than 1,200 feet deep which became known as the "big bonanza". In 1871, Irish-Americans John William Mackay, James Graham Fair, James Clair Flood and William S. O'Brien, organized the Consolidated Virginia Silver Mine near Virginia City, Nevada,