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,
The Lord's Ranch The Lord's Ranch The Lord's Ranch is the name of an outreach ministry located in Vado, New Mexico, United States, that ministers heavily to the poor in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The ranch was founded by Father Rick Thomas who was moved on Christmas Day of 1972 to bring food to the poor people of Cd. Juárez. His inspiration came from Scripture, Luke 14:13, "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind." Thomas reported that he and a couple dozen others brought enough food for about 160 people, but in the end