100 Years of Boswell

Farmers weighing cotton, circa 1930s

In 1933, the company purchased the Chamberlain Ranch, not for its farmland but for something even more valuable: its water rights. The deal included stock in the Melga Canal Company, securing a critical water supply. The land itself was put to good use as reservoir sites, helping capture runoff water for future needs. Boswell also gained a controlling interest in the Tulare Lake Land Company. Then, in 1937, the company continued expanding with the purchase of the El Rico Ranch. By 1936, at the urging of Southwest Cotton Company (a subsidiary of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company), J. G. Boswell had secured a lease for the expansive Marinette Ranch in Arizona’s northwestern Maricopa County. That same year, the company leased the Santa Fe Ranch from the Santa Fe Improvement Company.

For years, the company had been growing and thriving, but 1938 threw some serious challenges its way. Massive floods—the worst ever seen—swept across much of Boswell’s land and that of its Corcoran customers. The

100 Years of Boswell

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