Additional historical context is provided in Section 1.1, “Historical Overview / Context” and Appendix A, Historical Overview. Walking Box Ranch is associated with patterns of events that have contributed to the development of southern Nevada, in this case the development of agriculture, specifically cattle ranching, in the Mojave region. As a remote ranch in a desolate location, the ranch illustrates the development of cattle ranching in the area throughout the twentieth century. The complex is illustrative of the period when cattle ranchers were obligated to set up privately owned home ranches to maintain access to public grazing lands under the Taylor Grazing Act. Walking Box Ranch is also associated with a more particular trend associated with ranching in the 1930s – that of the Hollywood actor-turned- rancher. Rex Bell and Clara Bow, both Hollywood personalities, built the main house and many of the outbuildings.

Walking Box Ranch embodies the distinctive architectural characteristics of a type, period, region, and method of construction. The design of the main house is characteristic of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style and includes many typical features. Though no architect has been identified, the main house exhibits subtle design details associated with an architect designed building. Designed for a high-profile Hollywood couple in a Mediterranean style (popular in California at the time), it is representative of its era. The property also exhibits a distinctive regional method of construction (railroad tie construction) in the barn and also in the corrals. Walking Box Ranch typifies the western home ranch property type in the southern Nevada desert. The extant historic buildings and surrounding landscape retain a fair to high degree of individual integrity, and thus, they are able to convey their original uses, intent, and historic and architectural significance. The relationship between these various contributing resources in the district is substantially unchanged since the Bell period. Thus, Walking Box Ranch remains as an excellent example of the home ranch in Clark County and the Mojave region.

The 40-acre ranchstead site of the Walking Box Ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district in January 2009. The period of significance for the district as an operating cattle ranch is 1931-1958.

The National Register is the official recognition by the federal government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. A Historic District is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects, and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories: contributing and non-contributing. Broadly defined, a contributing property is any property, structure, or object that adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make a historic district significant.

The Walking Box Ranch Historic District constitutes approximately 40 acres, located at the northwest quadrant of the original 160-acre home ranch, which is historically associated with Walking Box Ranch and contains those extant resources directly associated with the operations of the ranch. There are no individually listed buildings or structures, nor designated National Historic Landmarks within the district. Contributing resources to the historic district are the ranch house, barn, ice house, water tank, corrals, fences, and internal pathways. The district also includes Walking Box Ranch Road, which historically and today provides access to the district. Several original outbuildings, such as the guest house and blacksmith shop, have been demolished. In comparison to the surviving main house, barn, ice house, corrals, and water tank, the demolished buildings played a secondary role in the day-to-day operations of the ranch.

A number of non-contributing buildings, structures, site features, and objects also occupy the site; many of them are below ground (two water wells), small in scale (a water trough), or temporary in nature (two mobile trailers).

The Walking Box Ranch Historic District is significant under National Register Criteria A and C: