You will find ruts from the old Santa Fe Trail throughout parts of the ranch. V7 Ranch was also the home of the Clifton House, a prominent stage stop, during the mid 1800's.
This ranch was put together by two brothers from Texas named Tom and Mathias Stockton around 1860. Mathias' grandson Alvin had no family of his own. He wrote a professor at NMSU wanting a graduating senior from the ag college to maybe work up into the business. At the time this ranch was 9,000 deeded acres and a 340 cow outfit. John replied to the letter and was hired. It worked out so well that within a year he was earning shares in the corporation.
From 1969 to 1992 Alvin and John built this ranch from 9000 deeded acres and 340 cows to 16,000 deeded acres and 500 cows. Since Alvin's death, the family has increased the ranch to 3 times the original size in 1969.
The first fall John was here it became apparent that he needed to limit access to the property by the public. So he formed a hunting club and that was the first step to game management. This worked well all through the 70's, however, over that decade the game numbers began to thrive and the local outfitters all began to compete for our business, so we farmed the hunting out to a local we knew and trusted. This arrangement lasted through the 80's right up to 1995 at which point we entered a five year agreement with our neighbor to our south--the NRA Whittington Center--in which we grazed their property and they ran hunts on our land. In the year of 2000 the V7 took over the commercial hunts, slowly increasing client numbers & adding on to the hunting lodge. Improvements are an ongoing priority for the V7 crew.
