Rancher Ernie Ongaro Writes Book on the Brands of Sonoma and Marin Counties

 Sebastopol rancher Ernie Ongaro would have survived just fine in the Old West, riding the range, branding cattle and turning rawhide into leather crafts.

Ongaro’s love for the Old West and all things cowboy are the reasons he has devoted his spare time over the last eight years researching the brands of Sonoma and Marin counties and the cowboy folklore behind those symbols of ranch life. Ongaro’s work has been compiled into a new book called “Brands of California – Sonoma and Marin Counties,” which lists and graphically illustrates every registered brand in the two counties. Brands registered to everyone from football legend Joe Montana to wine baron Jess Jackson are illustrated in the 45-page book that chronicles the history of brands in California and Ongaro’s enduring love affair with the cowboy lifestyle.

Ongaro, a skilled horseman, cowboy poet and leather artist,  said it was his goal to preserve a slice of the rich agricultural history that is vanishing as urban development and vineyards take over more and more of the land once devoted to cattle and horse ranches. Ongaro, who is 70, has witnessed vast changes in the landscape he calls home. Although he has lived in Sonoma County for the last 35 years, he was born in Marin County in 1938 when most of the land was still in the country and, as a boy, rode horses across unfenced back country.

“The idea for the Brand Book started during the 25 years that I commuted from Sebastopol to San Anselmo in Marin County,” said Ongaro, whose family owns Ongaro & Sons Plumbing and Heating based in San Rafael. “I would take the back roads through Petaluma to get to work and, over the years, I noticed that dairies kept disappearing. When the dairies disappear the brands disappear.”

The dairy landscape was indeed changing right before Ongaro’s watchful eyes. In the 1940’s there were nearly 2,000 cattle farms in Sonoma and Marin counties, many of them small, mom-and-pop operations with 12 to 20 cows. Today, there are fewer than 100 dairies in the two counties where the average herd size is now nearly 400 cows.

When Ongaro turned over the family plumbing business to his sons and nephews in 2000,  he launched his quest to create a book of the historic brands as well as the brands still in use today on ranches in Sonoma and Marin counties. There are hundreds of brands registered to Sonoma and Marin ranchers with names like Corda, DeBernardi, Barboni, McIsaac, Moreda and Gallagher. These ranching families are proud keepers of brands like the DD or 06. Like fences, brands are a good way to maintain good relations with neighboring ranchers. There is an old saying, “Trust Your Neighbors but Brand Your Cattle.”

“To cattlemen steeped in tradition, your brand was your signature, and they were proud of that signature,” writes Dr. Gene Harlan, a large animal veterinarian in Sonoma County. Dr. Harlan, who has known Ongaro for 30 years, wrote the forward to the Brand Book.

“In today’s world, animal identification is a popular subject, as it impacts animal health, animal trace-back, country of origin and public health,” writes Dr. Harlan. “As Ernie’s book proves, we have had animal identification for well over 200 years here in California.”

Ongaro said he’s glad the book is finished but thoroughly enjoyed gathering the information and the places it took him.

“My research took me all over the place including cowboy museums. It’s been a very interesting and fascinating journey,” said Ongaro, who with his wife Joan lives on a 63 acre ranch in Sebastopol where he pastures a couple of draft horses and a few  head of beef cows.

“When I turned 70 I got out of the cattle business,” said Ongaro, who has been a member of Sonoma County Farm Bureau for 35 years. He’s also involved in the North Coast Draft Horse and Mule Association, the Marin Historical Museum and Marin Italian Catholic Federation.

Ongaro said brands are not unique to the West or even the United States. He said brands have been used as livestock identification in all countries and civilizations going back to 2000 BC. He said the brands burned on a cow or horse’s hind end could take on many forms.

“The symbols could be numbers, letters or a combination of both.,”  Ongaro writes in the book. “Special characters or figures, such as a box, a slash in either direction, a bar or a rail – a long bar – were used. There were circles, half circles, half moons and quarter moons and the designs could be whatever one imaged.”

Ongaro’s own brand is the Circle E, which he has proudly stamped on his cattle and horses as well as his signature leather craft.

 While running the family plumbing business in Marin County, the Ongaro family also operated a cattle ranch. In 1950 the family bought a ranch in Sonoma County, adjacent to what is now Sugarloaf State Park near Kenwood. They raised Hereford cattle, eventually transitioning to Hereford-Angus crosses. When the cattle numbers grew, the family bought a larger ranch in Napa County, running up to 300 cows on the hillsides rising above the Napa Valley. The Napa ranch was sold in the 1970’s. The Ongaro family reduced the herd and bought the smaller ranch in Sebastopol where Ernie and Joan now reside.

Ongaro’s earned his living from the plumbing business but his enduring lifelong passions have been ranching, riding, Western history, cowboy poetry and leather work.  He not only repairs saddles, he crafts captivating leather artwork, which have won blue ribbons at the fair.

Ongaro is a  Renaissance Man plugged into the Old West. His dedication to a vanishing way-of-life has yielded a history of the brands in Sonoma and Marin counties. Ongaro’s book is available for $25.47, which includes, tax, shipping and handling. Books can be ordered Online at www.brandsofca.com or by sending a check payable to Ernest Ongaro and mailed to: Brands of California, P.O. Box 7794, Cotati, Calif. 94931.

Story By Tim Tesconi, Photographs by Veda Radke

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