Keys Ranch: Where Time Stood Still (Teaching with Historic Places)

Keys Ranch. (Photo by Harmon and Nelda King, National Park Service.

This lesson is part of the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) program.

In the high desert of California, flesh-colored boulders rise up out of the stark landscape and embrace a small valley where Keys Ranch stands. Strangely shaped trees cast long shadows on the sides of the simple wooden ranch structures. Animal tracks in the sand tell of the previous night's adventures when scorpions, kangaroo rats, snakes, and bobcats battled for survival. This seemingly hostile desert environment was settled much later than other more productive areas of the West. Yet it was here, in 1917, that Bill Keys chose to establish a ranch and raise a family. Keys and other 20th-century homesteaders lived much as earlier pioneers in the West had, working hard to make their marginal land holdings successful. Today, Keys Ranch is preserved as part of Joshua Tree National Park. Use this lesson plan to learn more about Keys Ranch. (Click on the image for the full lesson plan.)

Objective

1. To examine the lifestyle of a family who chose to homestead in the California desert;
2. To describe how the Keys family both adapted to and shaped their desert environment;
3. To consider Ralph Waldo Emerson's description of self-reliance and describe how it relates to the life of Bill Keys;
4. To discover the history of settlement in their own region and determine how settlers' experiences may have compared to the experiences of Bill Keys.

Background

Time Period: 1910s - 1960s
Topics: The lesson could be used in U.S. history, social studies, and geography courses in units on western expansion and settlement, or desert environments. It also could be used in an American Literature course in a unit on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, particularly his concept of self-reliance. The lesson will help students understand why desert regions were among the last areas settled under the Homestead Act and how settlers in these places survived in a remote environment.

Grade Level

Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Subject

Literacy and Language Arts,Social Studies

Lesson Duration

90 Minutes

Common Core Standards

6-8.RH.2, 6-8.RH.3, 6-8.RH.4, 6-8.RH.5, 6-8.RH.6, 6-8.RH.7, 6-8.RH.8, 6-8.RH.9, 6-8.RH.10, 9-10.RH.1, 9-10.RH.2, 9-10.RH.3, 9-10.RH.4, 9-10.RH.5, 9-10.RH.6, 9-10.RH.7, 9-10.RH.8, 9-10.RH.9, 9-10.RH.10