The Rayner Family

Inducted in 2011

Mar 1

Buckeye - Maricopa County

Inducted in 2011

The story of the Rayner farm, A Tumbling T Ranches, begins with Jonathan L. Rayner (JL), his son Frank E. Rayner, and their move to Arizona with their families from northern California in January of 1914. The Rayners moved their farm equipment by train to Maricopa. From there, mules hauled it to their new farms just north and south of Indian School Road on the west bank of the Agua Fria River at Litchfield Park. Other family members followed in the next few years.

The family quickly took their place in the community. Family patriarch J.L. circulated the petitions to start Litchfield School for his children and grandchildren. School census documents from 1918 bear the signature of his wife, Sarah, as the school census marshal. The census listed the names of five Rayner students, all younger siblings of Frank’s.

Grandson Ron Rayner says, “Our dad was pretty young then. He was about three years old when the school was started. Our grandfather’s younger siblings were the first Rayners to attend the school.”

Frank and his wife, Geneva, brought their daughter Francis to Arizona. In 1915, their first son, Earl E. Sr., was born at the family farm located about a quarter of a mile south of the Roosevelt Irrigation District canal on the bank of the Agua Fria River. Eventually, they had nine children. Earl Sr. was in the first class at Litchfield High School in 1928. He drove himself and his siblings to school daily in the family’s horse-drawn wagon.

Farming near his father, J.L., and later his brother, Harrison Rayner, Frank grew potatoes and onions for market and forage crops for a few dairy cows. The potatoes and onions were sold at the terminal market on Jackson Street in Phoenix, the site of Chase Field today.

“The terminal market had large shaded stalls where the produce trucks would pull in,” grandson Earl Jr. remembers. “The small grocery owners would buy their produced off the back of the trucks at three of four a.m.”

Later, the potatoes were trucked to the Litchfield depot siding to be loaded into iced boxcars. Frank’s oldest son, Earle Sr., farmed with his father for many years but eventually decided to start his operation. Earle had married the former Clara Perry in 1935. When the couple moved to the farm’s current headquarters in Goodyear in 1946, they brought four children: 10-year-old Earle Jr., seven-year-old Donna, five-year-old Ron, and three-year-old Robert. Daughter Judy was born at the new farm site in Goodyear, still the site of the current operations.

All three boys attended either the University of Arizona or Arizona State University, with Earle Jr. and Robert returning to the family farm. Ron graduated from the University of Arizona in January 1964 with a B.S. degree in Agriculture Education. He taught high school agriculture at his alma mater, Agua Fria Union High School, for a few years before returning to the farm full-time with his father and two brothers.

The three brothers each had an area of interest on the farm and developed a way of working together that was supportive yet allowed individual initiative. This bond was cemented by their father's untimely death at the age of 53 in 1968.

Earl Jr., Ron, and Robert took a crash course in farm economics because of their father’s death. Ron had left his teaching position and returned to the farm two years before his father’s death.

“I was always very thankful for the period here to learn a little about how Dad handled the bookkeeping and other farm business matters. It wasn’t easy running the farm without his advice and guidance.”

The brothers struggled for many years to keep their heads above water and expand their operations beyond the “home place” to a scale that could support their growing families. They rented land in El Mirage, Waddell, Goodyear, Gila Bend, and Willcox. In addition, they purchased more land at Goodyear and Gila Ben and eventually in the central valley of California.

Today, A Tumbling T Ranches grows durum wheat for the pasta plant in Tolleson, alfalfa, and forage sorghum for local dairies. Cotton is marketed through Calcot for the export market. In California, the operation produces pomegranates, plums, wine, grapes, lemons, naval oranges, and tangelos.

In 1981, the Rayners helped organize a cotton ginning company in Buckeye, where Ron continues as president, and an electrical district where Ron has served as board chair since its creation in 1987. Ron is also a past president of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association, past president and board chairman of the National Cotton Council, and currently serves as chairman of Calcot, a cotton-marketing cooperative with members in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The future looks bright for A Tumbling T Ranches as the next generation occurs in the business. Earle Jr’s son, John, and Robert’s son, Perry, have both joined their dads and uncles at the family farm. Both are graduates of the University of Arizona. Ron’s son, Ross, is currently attending the University of Arizona, Tucson, in the College of Agriculture.