Street Smarts: Silver-spoon childhood led to ranch life

He graduated from Oak Park and River Forest Township High School in June 1943 and immediately joined the Navy, against his mother’s wishes. After he entered the military it was discovered one of his arms was longer than the other due to a childhood injury, so he never went to war. Instead he attended Northwestern University and earned a bachelor’s degree in education.

During his college years he wed his girlfriend, Helen, and they had five children — Don, John, Michael, Wendy and Julie.

After college Lloyd taught history and coached football at Evanston High School in Illinois for a few years before going to work for his father in the hotel industry.

In 1956, Betty Golder decided she wanted to get into the ranching business and came to Tucson. After visiting the Old Pueblo, she returned home. The couple sold their investments and the family moved to Tucson. Around 1957 the Golder family bought Rancho Vistoso, with Lloyd III and Nancy each owning 21 percent of the approximately 4,800-acre ranch.

Lloyd III and his family moved to the ranch for about three years. In 1959, Lloyd III purchased, from Roberta Nicholas, the 18,000-acre Rail N Ranch (the “R” and “N” in the ranch name was a play on the first letters of Roberta Nicolas’ first and last names). It included part of what is now Catalina State Park to the south and part of the land where Biosphere 2 now sits to the north. The land extended to Oracle Road to the west and Catalina Forest to the east. As part of the deal Roberta Nicolas was given a life estate, meaning she could live at the ranch house until her death. The house is now the administrative building for Miraval Resort.

The ranch was under the direction of foreman Joe Fanning for many years.

Around 1961 Lloyd began building a dam across the Cañada del Oro river, about 4 miles north of the Pinal County line. His intent was to form a lake, around which he planned to build a 9,000-acre community development to be called Lago del Oro (SaddleBrooke is there now).

The Golder Dam was completed in 1964 at a cost of $1 million, along with the Lago del Oro (Lake of Gold), but the dam was declared unsafe in a legal action that spanned several decades. The lakeside community was never built.

The Lago del Oro Parkway derives its name from that failed community. Golder named the lake and street partly because it was located in Cañada del Oro and partly as a play on his last name “Golder,” since “Oro” is Spanish for gold.

In the 1960s, he also developed a subdivision to the south of Lago del Oro called Twin Lakes, which got its name from the lake there. The street Twin Lakes Drive also gets its name from the lake, which was located where the Twin Lakes subdivision is now.

The streets in the housing development were named by Golder with maritime themes, such as Anchor Avenue, Mainsail Boulevard, Forecastle Avenue, Capstan Avenue, Starboard Drive, Buoy Place, Mainyard Place, Drydock Place, Lakeview Circle, Sailboat Place, Starfish Place and Admiral Place.

Also in the 1960s, he named several roads on the ranch near Columbus Boulevard with horse themes, such as Palomino Lane and Place, Bronco Lane, Pinto Lane, and Stallion Place. He also named a few streets near Oracle Road with plant names such as Daisy Place, Aloe Place, Thistle Street and Lupine Place.

In the mid-1960s Lloyd and Helen divorced.

In the 1970s, he also developed the Rail N Ranch subdivision and gave the streets Western and ranching themed nanes such as Wagon Train Road, Rail N Road and Windmill Place.

In 1974, Golder met Vicki (Doubek) Cox during a real estate transaction and on Dec. 31 they wed in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. They had one son, Lloyd Golder IV, and Golder adopted Cox’s son Victor. Both still live on the ranch.

Around 1976, Golder and Bob Murray, a retired fire chief, began the Golder Ranch Fire Department. Golder helped finance the department by buying the ambulance and equipment. Vicki has served on the Golder Ranch Fire District Board since 1989.

According to Vicki, Golder gave up the lease to state land in the 1970s so the Amphitheater School District could bid on the lease. As a result, Coronado K-8 school was built.

In the 1980s, the Golders bought the 1,437-acre Tinsley Ranch near Capitan, New Mexico, and renamed it Golder Ranch. This is the only ranch they have ever owned legally known as Golder Ranch. In 1994, they began construction on a new home on the southern part of the ranch and moved in the following year.

On Feb. 23, 2013, Lloyd W. Golder III — the man who loved to sail, watch the History Channel and likened himself a little bit to John Wayne — died.

Many people believe the area is legally called Golder Ranch due to the street name, fire department, shopping centers, etc., but it is still legally called the Rail N Ranch, Vicki says.

On June 1, 1964, Hardin Road was extended east into the Rail N Ranch but later it was renamed Golder Ranch Drive in honor of Lloyd. Parts of Hardin Road still exist today west of the I-10.

Note: Sutherland Trail, a small road off of Golder Ranch Drive, and the nearby Sutherland Wash are believed to be named after the homesteading Sutherland family, which included William H. Sutherland and sons Frank and William Ray Sutherland.