Running for 430 seasons more than 14 years, NBC’s “Bonanza,” produced by Paramount Studios from 1959-70 and Warner Brothers Studios from 1970-73, was primetime television’s second longest running western series, after “Gunsmoke,” and, through its continued airing in syndication, remains a much beloved and immensely popular program among millions to this day. Its popularity was such that in 2002, a generation after vanishing from primetime, it ranked 43 on TV Guide’s list of “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.”
“Bonanza” chronicled the life and times of the Cartwright family, which lived in the Lake Tahoe region of Nevada on what was billed as a “thousand-square-mile” (later changed to ‘half-a-million-acre”) ranch called the Ponderosa. The town closest to the ranch was Virginia City, the set for which was first shot on a Paramount back lot from 1959-70, and then on at Warner Brothers until 1973. Meanwhile, the opening shot of the show, depicting the ranch, was first set in the San Jacinto Mountains in Riverside County, California and later moved to Lake Tahoe. Bonanza’s Ponderosa Ranch set in Nevada was recreated in Incline Village,. Nevada in 1967 and from then until its September 2004 closing was a leading tourist destination.

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