From the Archive

At the Happy Bottom Riding Club, Pancho Barnes knew how to keep the good times rolling. During the Holidays of 1948 she cooked up an outrageous idea:  an airborne treasure hunt! It would be the first of many held at the Happy Bottom Riding Club with the first one hosted on January 30, 1949.

Pilots took off from her airstrip, landed at four fields, and chased clues leading to a chest filled with 100 silver dollars, a gold-buckled belt and other goodies. Pancho’s flyer set the tone:

“Be sure to wear your Buccaneer clothes.”
“Fly in, tie down for free, camp for free or see if we can sardine you [Read More]

In February 1935 Pancho Barnes traded her last remaining major asset, a bungalow apartment courtyard that she owned on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood for 80 acres of desert farmland. After many years of hard work (while a single mom!), she eventually enlarged the ranch to 360 acres, and transformed part of the desert farmland to become the world famous ‘Happy Bottom Riding Club.’

The Pancho Barnes Trust Estate Archive contains copies of letters that Pancho Barnes wrote to her friend, actor Duncan Renaldo (later of motion picture and TV fame as ‘The Cisco Kid’) discussing her ideas regarding the naming of her new desert ranch that she had recently purchased in February 1935.

In a letter dated February 5, 1935 Pancho Barnes writes, “Dear Duncan, I have been trying to think of a name to call the ranch. As it is surrounded to the South by dry lakes, the name ‘Rancho Lago Seco’ might be good. It’s euphonious, and whether or not a person knew Spanish, he would still be able to pronounce it. The name, of course, means ‘Dry Lake Ranch.’ Maybe you can [Read More]