Fryrear Ranches

John Burr Fryrear was born in Kentucky in 1833 and came west in 1853. In 1858, he married Elizabeth Berry, who had traveled the Oregon Trail from Missouri with her family. At age 20, John filed a federal donation land claim to obtain 320 acres in Linn County, Oregon. John and Elizabeth had six children: Thomas, William, Benjamin, Susan, John Robert, and David.

Although a stone mason by occupation, Fryrear fought in the 1864-1868 Snake War against the Northern Paiute under Chief Paulina. In 1882, the family left the Willamette Valley and crossed the Cascades by wagon. They filed a homestead claim on 160 acres east of Camp Polk bordering Hindman

Ranch, making them among the earliest local settlers. John filed the first application for water rights to Whychus Creek. The family improved the land as required by the Homestead Act by building a house, barn, well, and fencing, and installing irrigation to grow grain for their livestock. John died in 1919, and the original homestead was sold to lumberman J.P. Duckett in 1926. John and Elizabeth are buried at Camp Polk Cemetery.

John's surviving sons all purchased land near Sisters. Thomas, the eldest, purchased parcels in Sections 30 and 31, and additional land in Jefferson County. He died in 1924. The second oldest, William, married Etta Taylor in 1886. They had four children: Eva, Josie, Sterling, and Mary. William purchased land in Section 20 in 1896. He grew grains and ran cattle. He and Etta purchased additional land outside Sisters Country. Sterling helped his father raise cattle and later started the first meat market in Laidlow (now Tumalo.) William and Etta sold the ranch, which is now known as Desert Springs Ranch, in the late 1920s and lived in Washington until their deaths in 1943 and 1952, respectively. They and their daughters are buried in Camp Polk Cemetery.

John Robert Fryrear was born in 1870. In 1900, he purchased land in Section 8. He raised sheep and worked on the railroad. In 1914, while living in Vancouver, Washington, he married Pearl Young. By 1920, they were back in Bend, where they remained the rest of their lives. John Robert sold his land in 1923. David, who was 6 months old when his parents homesteaded, purchased 160 acres in section 8 adjacent to his brothers' properties. In 1906, he married Clara Lawrence in Sisters. In 1919, the family moved to Skamania, Washington, and resumed farming. By 1930, they had moved to Bakersfield, California, and later to San Luis Obispo, where David died in 1958.