Ghost Ranch

Ghost Ranch is part of Piedra Lumbre (Spanish, "Shining Rock"), a 1766 land grant to Pedro Martin Serrano from Charles III of Spain. The Rito del Yeso is a stream that meanders through the canyons and gorge, providing a drought-resistant source of water for life to thrive. In 1976, Ghost Ranch was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.[3]

The canyon was first inhabited in the 1880s by the Archuleta brothers, cattle rustlers who enjoyed the coverage and invisibility that the canyon provided as well as their ability to see for miles down the valley. They created two jacal homes and would move stolen cattle throughout the night to Box Canyon. By transporting the cattle through streams, footprints would be lost and they could not be tracked. Stories of people staying with the Archuleta brothers who had gone missing (and their clothing on the men) circulated around the area. One day one of the brothers made a transaction without the other, and claimed he had buried the gold for safety. The second brother killed him, and kept his wife and daughter hostage until they admitted to knowing where the gold was hidden. Although the mother and daughter feared the rumored spirits of the canyon, they mustered up the courage to sneak away at night through the Chama Valley.[4] A group of local men then came to the ranch, fighting through their fear, and hanged the remaining brother and his gang from a cottonwood tree that still stands next to one of the casitas on the property. Other visitors who stayed in the casita later on noted that they could hear voices of a man and a woman fighting.

200 million years ago Ghost Ranch and the American Southwest were located close to the equator, and had a warm, monsoon-like climate with heavy seasonal precipitation.[7] Ghost Ranch includes a famous palaeontological site preserving Triassic dinosaurs. Fossil bones were found here as early as 1885. In 1947 the palaeontologist Edwin H. Colbert documented the discovery of over a thousand well-preserved fossilized skeletons of a small Triassic dinosaur called Coelophysis in a quarry here.[8] In 2007, fossil remains of Dromomeron romeri, one of the group of animals recognized as basal dinosauromorphs, were found in the Hayden Quarry.[9] In April 2010, a team of scientists led by Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian Institution reported the discovery of Daemonosaurus chauliodus, a basal theropod species, at Ghost Ranch.[7] Daemonosaurus lived approximately 205 million years ago, during a transitional period between the oldest known dinosaurs such as Herrerasaurus, which existed during the Late Triassic period in what is now known as Argentina and Brazil, and the more advanced theropod dinosaurs.[7][10]

Ghost Ranch's redrock scenery and 21,000 acres (8,500 hectares) have attracted many filmmakers. Here is a partial list of films and series shot at Ghost Ranch:

• Effigia

• Official website
• Media related to Ghost Ranch at Wikimedia Commons