Genesee Valley Ranch is located in the heart of legendary California gold country, surrounded by the Plumas National Forest. This pristine and historic mountain ranch is the Napa Valley for exquisite beef. The abundant water supply, high elevation, and protected valley provide extraordinary land to raise the world’s most prestigious cattle.
Genesee Valley Ranch
historical | sustainable | extraordinary
A Pampered Herd
Our ranch manager customizes the care of our Wagyu cows throughout the seasons, ensuring a happily thriving herd.
GVR offers 100% purebred Black Wagyu beef, raised on organically grown grass pastures. The result is luxurious and humanely nurtured beef which is remarkably different from its commercially raised counterpart. Like every great luxury where quality is high, the quantity is scarce. As a result, only a few customers a year can enjoy access to GVR beef.
Our ranching practices are centered around the tenet that great beef comes from well-treated animals. At GVR, our cattle are never aggressively handled, grain-fed, or confined to unnatural small spaces. These animals are pasture-raised solely on a diet of diversified grasses. Each field is rotated with a variety of native grasses to ensure that both the land and the cattle benefit from a sustainable, environmentally sensitive management program.
Genesee Valley Ranch respects the land and anticipates the needs of the animals in a holistic way. The result is a balanced beef, bringing together the best of luxury and sustainability.
Learn more by reading our Blog.
A Ranch with History
Four generations of the Hosselkus family ran cattle
on Genesee Valley Ranch.
The GVR ranch has deep roots in California Gold Country history. In 1862, Edwin D. Hosselkus of Genesee, New York came to this small valley and christened it Genesee, CA. His dreams pulled him West, but fortunately his savvy business sense lead him beyond the prospects of mining. Soon after arriving, he turned his interests to ranching and forming a mercantile business. Out of the surrounding forest, he felled and milled trees to build a general store/post office, granary, creamery and blacksmith shop. Cattle was at the center of his operation and four generations of his family kept the ranching tradition alive.
Prior to the Hosselkus’ arrival, the land was known as hospital ground to the Northern Maidu Indian. This peaceful tribe established small villages along the riverbeds and valleys throughout Plumas County. They were renowned for living harmoniously with their environment. At the confluence of Grizzly Creek and Indian Creek on the Genesee Valley Ranch was one such village called Yetámato-non. The Maidu presence at GVR serves as a constant inspiration for us to tend to this land with the same care and intuition as the Northern Maidu did before us.
Maidu Basket Weavers by Philip Hyde Photograph Description
By David Leland Hyde, Dec 30, 2018
In 1963, while Maidu Basket Weavers Daisy Baker and her daughter Lilly Baker made baskets at Daisy’s home in Indian Valley near Greenville, California, American conservation photographer Philip Hyde documented the ladies work with a series of medium format 2 1/4 film photographs. Daisy Baker died just a few months after the photo session, though Lilly Baker lived until age 95 in 2006. Both Daisy and Lilly made Maidu baskets for many years and taught others the skill, but none have produced the number or variety of shapes and sizes that the Bakers did. Some historians have called them, “the last of the Maidu Basket Weavers.” Besides her childhood home in Big Meadows, now mainly submerged by Lake Almanor, two of Lilly’s favorite places to cut and gather willows for baskets were along Indian Creek in Mormon Canyon between Taylorsville and Genesee and at the Mouth of Genesee Valley. Sets of the Maidu Basket Weavers 10 photograph series of original sliver gelatin prints can be found in permanent collections at the Oakland Museum, The Maidu Museum Interpretive Center and Historic Site, The Redding Museum, Plumas County Museum, Greenville Cy Hall Memorial Museum and Indian Valley Museum.
Daisy and Lilly Baker, Maidu Basket Weavers, Indian Valley, California, 1963 by Philip Hyde
