Black Butte Ranch

Northern Paiute, Warm Springs, and Wasco families camped, hunted, gathered, and traded while passing through Sisters Country seasonally for thousands of years. 19th Century Oregon Trail immigrants brought land conflicts leading to establishment of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation, to which these native families were relocated beginning in 1855.

Ironically, many of Sisters' early settlers had migrated eastward, from the Willamette Valley, along the Santiam Wagon Road, beginning in 1868. In 1881 Tillman Glaze filed a homestead claim on 160 acres of meadows and swampland in Section 14 of Township 14 South, Range 9 East. He raised horses and cattle and built a log cabin near Indian Ford Creek and Jay Bird Ridge. He used the cabin as a retreat until he sold it in 1889 to his friend James Blakely, the Crook County Sheriff. In 1892, Joseph Glaze received patent to 160 acres adjacent to his brother Tillman's former property. He built a cabin on Indian Ford Creek and managed both properties.

Black Butte Land & Livestock Company operated five ranches around central Oregon between 1902 and 1918, including 640 acres of timberland and swamp in Sections 9 and 10 (of T14S, R9E) purchased from N. J. Lambert and called Swamp Ranch. Lumberman and sportsman Samuel Johnson bought it in 1924 primarily for the timber. He was instrumental in expanding Sisters' lumber industry. He sold the cutover Swamp Ranch to Stewart Lowery of Menlo Park, California, in 1934. Stewart renamed it Black Butte Ranch. One of the company's partners, William Wurzweiller, former Prineville mayor and businessman, built the first house on the ranch. Sisters rodeo figure Carl Campbell lived in the Wurzweiller home and managed the ranch from 1940 to 1952.

Howard Morgan was a sheep rancher, Oregon Public Utility commissioner, state representative, and state Democratic Party chairman. He bought the Lowery property in 1957 and ran sheep. His attempts to sell it for a state park were rebuffed. In 1970 Howard sold the property to Brooks Resources, a subsidiary of Bend-based Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company, which agreed to preserve the ranch's scenic beauty. Thus began development of Black Butte Ranch, which had profound impacts on the Sisters economy. Today, the 1,800-acre ranch is a residential resort owned and managed by the homeowners' association. It features two 18-hole championship golf courses, three restaurants, sports shops, tennis courts, five swimming pools, 18 miles of equestrian and bicycle paths, and approximately 1,250 home sites.