Photograph of Empire Ranch — Photograph by BLM, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Empire Ranch House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

“Empire Ranch is a working cattle ranch in southeastern Pima County, Arizona, that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In its heyday, Empire Ranch was one of the largest in Arizona, with a range spanning over 180 square miles (470 km2), and its owner, Walter L.”
Wikipedia article Empire Ranch, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 204 National Register listings published here for Pima County · listed in 1975 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Address. 6 mi. E of Greaterville, Greaterville, 85637
When was it listed? May 1975
Category. building
Census division. Tucson
National Register reference number. 75000354 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

93 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 93 fires within 5 miles of Empire Ranch House between 1993 and 2020, burning about 15,104 acres in total. 31 started naturally. 4 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	36
Natural	31
Equipment and vehicle use	11
Recreation and ceremony	6
Arson/incendiarism	4
Debris and open burning	2
Firearms and explosives use	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Gila District Office	MP39
8 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Gila District Office	HUMMEL
3 September 2000	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	GARDNER
21 September 2004	Natural	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	BIG BAD TREE
10 September 2000	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	EMPIRE GULCH
8 August 2012	Natural	under an acre	Gila District Office	GARDENER
4 August 2019	Natural	7.1 acres	Gila District Office	CURLY HORSE
29 August 1997	Natural	under an acre	Gila District Office	LEVEE

Every fire recorded in Pima County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Empire Ranch House: 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Empire Mts Mine	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Pima County

Storms near this property

6 since 2011

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Greaterville, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2011 and 2021: 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Greaterville	-	A wind gust to 63 mph was recorded at the Empire RAWS.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Greaterville	-	Thunderstorm outflow winds produced a gust to 67 mph at Empire RAWS.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Greaterville	-	A thunderstorm wind gust of 67 mph was recorded at Empire RAWS.
July 2017	Flash Flood	Greaterville	-	Flash flooding occurred along a portion of Sands Ranch Road in Whetstone causing the road to be temporarily shut down.
September 2015	Flash Flood	Greaterville	-	Heavy rain caused Florida Canyon to overflow its banks near the Santa Rita Mountains.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Greaterville	-	Trained spotter recorded a wind gust of 62 mph at his home near Patagonia Lake.

Every storm recorded in Pima County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75000354 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Pima County	All 204 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.