Funding sought to build park around Kiel Ranch

Thursday, Aug. 22, 2002 | 8:53 a.m.

The North Las Vegas City Council is requesting $5.3 million from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act to restore three projects in the city.

The council approved on Wednesday spending $2.4 million for design and construction of a regional historical park at Kiel Ranch on 8 acres surrounded by an industrial area.

Kiel Ranch has two of the oldest buildings in Nevada on a 240-acre homestead settled by Conrad Kiel in the mid-1800s. The city owns the ranch near the corner of Carey Avenue and Losee Road.

When the restoration project is completed, the ranch will boast trails, a pond and landscaping.

The Park Mansion, which was the center of the ranch, burned to the ground Aug. 18, 1992, leaving two buildings standing: the adobe house, built in 1855, which is said to be the second oldest building in Southern Nevada, and a shed. The historic Mormon Fort near Cashman Field is the area's oldest building.

Three unsolved killings in the late 19th century embellished the legend of the 147-year-old Kiel Ranch. Near the turn of the century, Las Vegas pioneer Helen J. Stewart lost her husband Archibald there.

Although it was never proven, outlaw Hank Parrish is suspected of gunning him down.

Two more killings occurred there. Stewart's sons, Frank and William, are alleged to have avenged their father's death by slaying Ed and William Kiel, the sons of Conrad Kiel.

From the late 1890s to the early 1970s the ranch was owned by the Losee family, which turned it into the Boulderado Dude Ranch in the 1940s and '50s. Celebrities such as George Montgomery and Mickey Rooney stayed there.

By the 1960s and '70s many of the original ranch buildings were falling down, had burned to the ground or had been leveled.

In 1974 the Regal Development Co. gave the ranch to the North Las Vegas Bicentennial Committee. In 1976 the committee donated it to the city.

The city council also approved a staff recommendation for two other projects, $500,000 for buying right of way for regional trails along the Upper Las Vegas Wash and $2.4 million for design and construction of regional trails along the Las Vegas Wash "A" Channel.

The Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a fund set up by Congress in 1998 to protect sensitive lands in Clark County. North Las Vegas received $1.7 million in 2001 from the fund and $2.45 million in 2002.