Working Ranch Magazine January/February 2025

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the business in Las Vegas, and in 1882, moved the family to La Cinta, New Mexico. There she established several businesses, including a ferry across the Canadian River, and a grocery, and took the position as postmistress. She would also own a hotel, found a bank, and open a mercantile store. Yetta also opened the Red River Social Club, a place for the locals that offered dining, singing, dancing, and reading. Yetta started buying land as soon as she settled into La Cinta. She bought more cattle and began grazing them on the property. By 1887 she was running over 4,000 head on the open range of San Miguel County’s Arroyo de Las Animas. She had two investors, they called it the 4V cattle ranch, and it was given to the three oldest kids to run, with Howard as manager. Yetta had little more than a basic education but saw to it her children all attended school and college away from home in the 1880s. In 1888, she sold her cattle to Wilson “Waddie” Waddingham, who owned the Bell Ranch, one of the largest landowners in the country at the time. Yetta’s next venture was as a real estate investor, going to live in Wichita, Kansas, and New York City. By the turn of the century, Kohn and her sons had returned to Las Vegas once more, where Charles opened a new general store. Always looking for new oppor tunities for the family, they moved to a railroad stop called Roundtree, which soon became the town of Montoya, (near today’s Conchas Dam.) Yetta soon acquired more land through the Homestead Act and founded a new ranch called Yetta Kohn & Company. The new brands were 4V and YK. Keeping with their custom, they opened more businesses, including a land company, another bank called Kohn Bros., and a new mercantile. The boys lived in Montoya and Las Vegas and ran most of the businesses, and Yetta continued in the real estate business with new investments in New Mexico and Kansas. Belle, now married to Albert Calisch, moved to Montoya in 1904, started their own ranch, and had a son named Stanley. The family continued to do well in

Yetta Kohn acquired a sizable amount of grazing land in New Mexico through the Homestead Act and founded a new ranch called Yetta Kohn & Company. The new brands were 4V and YK.

the early years of the new century, always looking for ways to expand their holdings. The family’s busi nesses provided jobs and services to hundreds of people and they were universally loved by everyone they ever dealt with. In 1916, Charles mar ried Hannah Bonem. While on their honeymoon in Kansas City, Charles suddenly got sick and died of an abscessed tooth. In a tragic twist of fate, George, overcome with grief at his brother’s untimely death, died of heart failure on February 3, 1916, just three days after Charles’ death. Yetta and the family were devastated. Friends felt it caused a rapid decline in her health. She died on April 24, 1917, at her home in Montoya. The April 27th Santa Fe New Mexican wrote of the late matriarch: “She had a special faculty for comforting the unsuccessful without injuring their pride, and hundreds of needy will miss her ever-ready response to their appeals. Home life was her greatest pleasure and ideal, and legions have

been made happy through a [ sic ] hospi tality which has become proverbial. A real type of womanhood has departed, but her good influence will live always.” The remaining son, Howard, contin ued to run the family businesses and invest in real estate after his mother’s death. A long-time bachelor, he mar ried his bookkeeper, Clara McGowen, in 1923. They had one daughter they named Yetta. In 1933, there was a fire at the Kohn Ranch. After working to put it out, Howard became sick and died of smoke inhalation. Clara, hav ing learned a lot from Yetta, stepped up and took over the family business and grew the ranch to 180,000 con tiguous acres with the purchase of part of the Bell Ranch in 1946. Today, the T4 Cattle Company is one of the largest private ranches in the United States, and a testament to the legacy of Yetta Louise (Goldsmith) Kohn, who first stepped onto American soil as a ten-year-old immigrant.

Bert’s website is www.blackmulepress.com

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