6.1 miles away
Kentucky Camp
A ghost town and former mining camp near Sonoita, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1995 and maintained by the US Forest Service.
Empire Ranch
A working cattle ranch in south-eastern Pima County, listed in 1976, whose range once spanned more than 180 square miles.
- Rank in Arizona
- #199of 727 ranked
- Overall score
- Score 46.0 out of 100medium confidence
- Category
- Historic Site
Empire Ranch is a working cattle ranch in south-eastern Pima County, Arizona, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It dates from the 1860s, and at its height its range spanned more than 180 square miles; its owner, Walter L. Vail, was a significant figure in the establishment of the cattle industry in southern Arizona. The adobe ranch house is the listed building. The property is now owned by the Bureau of Land Management, which leases the grazing to a private operator, and is managed as part of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area; the surrounding land is used for birding, hiking and horse riding.
Where it is
Empire Ranch is a historic site near Sonoita, in Pima County. It is one of the historic sites in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.
How this ranking was reached
No official visitor count is published for Empire Ranch, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.
Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.
Sources
- Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
- Coordinates and designations: Wikivoyage(opens in a new tab)
- County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
- Official site: http://www.empireranchfoundation.org/(opens in a new tab)
Record last verified 2026-08-12.
More photographs
Public domain · source(opens in a new tab) 
Public domain · source(opens in a new tab)
Nearby attractions
8.8 miles away
Onyx Cave
A half-mile solutional cave in Permian limestone in the Santa Rita Mountains, designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974.
9.6 miles away
Fort Buchanan
An 1856 US Army post south-west of Sonoita, burned by Apaches in 1865 and abandoned; its ruins were rediscovered in 1929.
10.0 miles away
Helvetia
A ghost town in Pima County settled in 1891 and abandoned in the early 1920s, most of it now fenced off by active mining.13 miles away
Iron Springs (Cochise County, Arizona)
A spring in the Whetstone Mountains where Wyatt Earp killed William "Curly Bill" Brocius in March 1882, later mapped as Mescal Springs.
13 miles away
Whetstone Mountains
A range in south-eastern Arizona named in 1859 for its novaculite, a fine-grained rock used to sharpen tools.
Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Historic Site
- Destination
- Sonoita
- County
- Pima County
- State
- Arizona
- Designations
- National Register of Historic Places listed place
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 46.0 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 25.7
- Significance score
- 63.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Official website
- empireranchfoundation.org(opens in a new tab)
- Coordinates
- 31.7850, -110.6423
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12