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,
Movie ranch and episodes of television's "Bonanza" and "The Lone Ranger". A western town set was located at the ranch. The Spahn Ranch was once home to the infamous Manson Family. A 1970 mountain wildfire destroyed the film set and the residential structures. The Spahn Movie Ranch is now part of the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park. Located in the Santa Monica Mountains, the 20th Century Fox Movie Ranch (aka: Century Movie Ranch & Fox Movie Ranch) was first purchased in 1946 by 20th Century Fox Studios. From 1956-1957, 20th Century Fox productions filmed their first television series there: "My Friend