COMMISSION

The California gold rush brought Argonauts to the area in the early 1850s and 1860s,
and the Indian trails served as important transportation corridors for the miners and
teamsters. Other later mineral discoveries, including borax, silver, and tungsten, fueled the
development of nearby towns, railroads, roads and highways.
As more and more miners came to the southern Sierra Nevada gold fields, entrepreneurs
came to the mining camps to establish businesses at Keyesville and Havilah to supply
them with food and provisions. This created a market for local ranchers, whose profits
would surpass those of the miners. The first was William Weldon, who in 1857 purchase
land in the foothills adjacent to Kelso Valley’s southwest section. His stock ranch supplied
much of the beef consumed by the Keyesville miners. The town of Weldon was named
after him in 1871.
Henry L. Mack settled in the Kelso Valley area
around 1864. The Mack Ranch’s best feature was
a well-watered meadow that straddled Kelso Valley
Road. Sometime after 1877, William Wallace Landers
purchased the Mack Ranch.
In the early 20th century the construction of the first
aqueduct from Owens Valley to Los Angeles brought
more activity to the region. The advent of automobiles
enabled more people to visit the desert, camping and
exploring and reveling in the grand open spaces. When a paved section of Highway 14 was
constructed through Red Rock Canyon in the early 1930s, more than 3,000 people showed
up for the ribbon cutting celebration. World War II brought a new era of nearby development
with large military bases and the infrastructure and population centers to support them.
By the end of World War II, Oscar Rudnick and his family owned and operated a multimillion
dollar ranching enterprise, which included the Onyx Ranch in Kern County. The
Mack Meadow Ranch played an important role in the upper Kelso Valley area’s historic land
use during the immediate post-war period. It continued to serve as the destination of longrange
cattle drives from desert ranges to mountains pastures. For example, in June 1965
the Rudnick Land and Cattle Company drove 3,000 steers from Ridgecrest to the Mack
Meadow Ranch. Until the sale of the ranch in 2008, it was part of the largest independent
family-run ranching operations in the United States.
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California State Parks, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission