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Est. 1851 · Lotus, California · El Dorado County

Five Generations.
One Tradition.

From the alpine meadows of Switzerland to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada — the same land, the same craft, the same cattle.

Our Story
Where It Begins

In 1851, a young man named William Bacchi left the mountain town of Rodi, Switzerland, and carried his way of life across an ocean and a continent to plant roots in the California foothills.

He arrived at a time when El Dorado County was still raw and wide open. After the long journey — sailing to New Orleans, crossing the Isthmus of Panama by mule and canoe, then steaming up to Sacramento — William settled in Mud Springs, a mining crossroads on the old Carson Emigrant Trail. Within a few years, he was running a store and working the land. By 1856, he was buying cattle.

He would never stop.

In 1867, William moved his family to Garden Valley, purchasing a 160-acre ranch. He steadily acquired land and grazing rights across El Dorado County, and in 1877 he purchased the mountain acreage around the meadow and cabins known as Peavine — a place that would become the heart of the Bacchi ranching tradition. By 1901, he was paying taxes on 1,550 acres of winter and summer grazing land.

He had brought something else from Switzerland too: the tradition of transhumance — the ancient practice of wintering cattle in the valley and summering them in the high mountain meadows. In the Alps, this rhythm is centuries old. William simply transplanted it to the Sierra Nevada foothills. And it has never stopped.

The Long Line

175 Years on the Same Ground

1851
William Bacchi Arrives in California
Departing from Rodi, Switzerland, William sails to New Orleans, crosses Panama by mule and canoe, and makes his way to El Dorado County. He settles in Mud Springs — now the town of El Dorado — an important mining center on the Carson Emigrant Trail.
1859
William Marries Elizabeth Pini
Elizabeth (Isabella) Pini was a fellow Swiss émigré, from the town of Airolo — just a few miles from William's own birthplace of Rodi. They would raise their family in the California foothills, building something lasting together.
1867–1877
Garden Valley & Peavine
William moves his family to Garden Valley, purchases the Moherter Ranch, and acquires the Peavine mountain acreage in 1877 — the meadow and cabins that remain the family's summer range to this day. Following Swiss tradition, he begins summering cattle in the mountains and making cheese and butter from the milk.
1879
Henry Frank Oswald Bacchi Is Born
The last of William and Elizabeth's children, Henry is born at Garden Valley on December 15th. He will grow up to become the builder of the ranch as it stands today — acquiring over 12,000 acres across 36 transactions between 1910 and 1942.
1908
Henry Marries Mary Silva
Henry meets Marie De Avila Silvera — known as Mary Silva — at a dance at Pilot Hill. Mary's own family story is remarkable: her father Manuel Silveira came from the Azores Islands as a whaler, landed in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, and made his way to Pilot Hill. Two immigrant families, two different journeys — meeting on the same El Dorado County land. Henry and Mary have much in common: both first-generation, both literate and hardworking, and each already driving their own cattle herd to the summer mountains. Three children follow: Byron (1909), Francis (1912), and Bethel (1915).
1910–1942
Building the Ranch
Through decades of disciplined work and sacrifice, Henry and Mary build the ranch into something remarkable. Letters from Mary in the early 1920s show the lengths the family went to in order to meet their mortgage obligations — every dollar the boys earned went to their mother to help pay for the land. The day the last mortgage was paid off, Francis said it was one of the happiest days of his life. "I never want to be in debt again," he said. And he wasn't.
Today
South Fork Grass Fed
Matt Little, fifth-generation rancher, carries the tradition forward — raising 100% grass-fed and finished beef on the same El Dorado County land, following the same Swiss mountain grazing rhythm William brought from Rodi in 1851. Now, for the first time, you can bring that beef directly to your table.
December 20, 1920
Mary Bacchi · Letter to Sister-in-Law Lizzie, Sacramento

The children have part in Tree Entertainment at Coloma & I must have something on tree. Am sending order for $7.97 (for three gifts) and check for $8.81... The doll that Bethel picked out was about $5.00. That's too much for her... They were nearly heartbroken last Xmas because they didn't have a tree. I will make each a bag of candy to go with this order.

It's easy to look at 12,000 acres and see only scale. Letters like this remind us what it actually cost — counted in dollars carefully sent, in children who made do, in a family that worked together and held on. That spirit is still here.

The Family

Five Generations of Ranchers

Each generation added to what the last one built — and passed it on.

01
William Bacchi
1851 — Rodi, Switzerland
Arrived with a tradition, a work ethic, and the Swiss art of mountain cattle ranching. Built the foundation from nothing.
02
Henry Bacchi
1879 — Garden Valley, CA
Built the ranch into over 12,000 acres through decades of labor and sacrifice. Established the operation as a serious cattle business.
03
Francis Bacchi
1912 — El Dorado County
Took over the day-to-day of the ranch, paid off the last mortgage, and kept the family's promise to the land — debt-free and committed.
04
Cheri & Paul Little
Lotus, CA
Continued the ranch at the home place, maintaining the mountain allotments at Peavine and the valley operation at South Fork.
05
Matt Little
Today — South Fork Grass Fed
Fifth generation. Same land. Same Swiss mountain grazing tradition. Now bringing 100% grass-fed and finished beef directly to your family.

"Among those who have already passed up with dairy stock are: Forni of Gold Hill, Sam Forni of this place, Filippini & Co., Bacchi of Garden Valley... and others whose names we have not in mind." — Georgetown Gazette, June 23, 1882

The Swiss Way

The Mountain & The Valley

In the Swiss Alps, farmers have moved their herds between low winter pastures and high summer meadows for centuries — and William Bacchi brought that same rhythm with him when he left Rodi in 1851. He found the perfect landscape waiting: rich valley pastures around Lotus for winter, and the cool high meadows at Peavine for summer.

In a recorded interview made when she was 96 years old, Mary Bacchi described the cattle drives she rode herself as a young woman — two full days on the road, an overnight stop near Georgetown, then on up into the mountains where the family would stay all summer. Twenty miles north of Georgetown. Completely isolated. "If somebody showed up," Byron recalled, "that was quite a real time."

That same movement — cattle going up the mountain each spring, coming down each fall — has continued without interruption for nearly 150 years. It's not a marketing story. It's just how we ranch.

South Fork Grass Fed

The Same Tradition. Now at Your Table.

Our cattle are 100% grass-fed and finished — raised on El Dorado County pasture in the winter and driven up to the Peavine mountain meadows each summer, exactly as William Bacchi's cattle were in 1882.

No feedlots. No grain finishing. Just cattle raised the way they were meant to be raised, on land that's been in one family's care for over 170 years.

We're proud to offer that beef directly to you — because after five generations of raising it right, it deserves to be on your table.

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South Fork Grass Fed

  • PO Box 581
    Lotus CA 95651
  • 5413505654