KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasHistoric Kiel Ranch in Shambles

Historic Kiel Ranch in Shambles

The fate of historic Kiel Ranch will be debated 4:30 this afternoon at the North Las Vegas City Hall. The public is invited to voice their opinion.

Thirty years ago, the remains of five people unearthed from the historic Kiel Ranch were put in storage at UNLV instead of being reburied on the land they once owned.

The fate of these human remains is directly linked to the poor treatment afforded the old ranch by the city of North Las Vegas since it took over the property in the 1970's.

Since Eyewitness News we first reported on the city's shabby treatment of this historic site back in May, hundreds of people have sent messages to North Las Vegas City Hall. That response has prompted the city council to call a special meeting on Wed., July 19, 2006 to consider the fate of the ranch.

No matter what is decided or isn't decided by the council, the neglect of the ranch isn't nearly as egregious as how its former residents have been treated, their bones stuck in boxes at a university morgue.

It's something the Kiel family will never forget or forgive. "Oh geez. They were mad," said Jerry Fiefield, a Kiel family member from Minnesota who is sort of the unofficial historian of the Kiel family. He's tracked down his relatives all over the country, from the civil war casualties to the Indian fighters and to the settlers of the Kiel ranch, one of the two oldest settlements in the Las Vegas valley and home to an adobe that may be the oldest building in Nevada.

The far-flung Kiel's have been somewhat aware that their namesake ranch has been allowed to deteriorate -- almost encouraged to do so -- ever since the city of North Las Vegas assumed ownership in 1976.

What they didn't know until seeing our Eyewitness News I-Team stories online was that human remains removed from the family graveyard 31 years ago were never put back.

"They're just laying in the morgue, laying in the morgue and no one can understand why," Fiefield said.  The remains of five people were exhumed from the ranch back in 1975. The assumption at the time was that since the ranch was going to be made into a park, the Kiel cemetery would have to be moved anyway.

Digging them up allowed anthropologists to try and solve an old mystery. Back in 1900, two of the Kiel's -- brothers Edwin and William -- were found shot to death on the ranch in 1900. It was always assumed that Edwin killed his brother and then killed himself.

UNLV scientists studied the remains and proved that someone else had murdered both brothers, but the remains of the five persons unearthed never left a makeshift morgue inside UNLV's anthropology department located in Wright Hall.

A few dozen other remains are housed there as well.  "Park planners said this isn't a place for burials so the chance to rebury them has come and gone," said Corrine Escobar, Preservation Association of Clark County.

She has chronicled the many broken promises made by city leaders over the past several years regarding Kiel Ranch.  There were promises to preserve and restore it, when in fact, the exact opposite is what's occurred.

The old adobe is crumbling. More than 20 buildings that were here when the city took over are gone. Trash abounds, protective fencing is a joke and the only remaining spring fed pond in the valley is so clogged with weeds that it can't be seen except from the air.

Instead of building a park, city leaders sold off most of the land to a private warehouse developer.  Adding insult to injury, the I-Team discovered earlier this year that the city parks dept. has been using the historic ranch as a dump for soil scooped out of duck ponds in other parks.

The parks director told us he had no other place to put it.  "We're not going to do what others do and drive out on private property and dump it. The dirt is good quality," said Mike Henley, North Las Vegas parks director.

Good quality of you don't count pieces of broken pipe, chunks of concrete and entire slabs of slag cement, not to mention piles of golf balls and whatever the ducks may have added to the mix.

Since we first reported about the dirt piles, city workers have been back at least twice to add more to the heaps. The fact that the city is using the place for a dump seems to have inspired others to do the same.

"Here's a spot in old North Las Vegas that could have been a beautiful little island and so far, they've blown it," said Dr. Michael Green, CCSN historian.

North Las Vegas residents have long believed the Kiel Ranch to be haunted, and if ever there was a place that deserved to be, this would be it, the site of several murders, and a lot of deaths.

It's believed that many native Americans who worked on the ranch are buried here somewhere, under all the garbage and broken promises and good clean dirt.

The North Las Vegas council meeting is set for 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The last time the council met about Kiel Ranch, it decided to return $2.4 million dollars in federal funds that were given to the city to spend on fixing Kiel Ranch.

The council said it would rather give the money back than spend it, that this part of town isn't appropriate for a park. If residents hope to change the mind of this current council, now is the time to speak up, either by attending the meeting or sending a message