The Pete Kitchen Ranch was established on Potrero Creek near Nogales, Arizona about 1862, reputedly the first permanent American ranch in Arizona. The site, which had good access to water, had been inhabited in prehistory and had been visited by Juan Bautista de Anza in October of 1774, who called it Las Lagunas, a name also used by Kitchen. By the 1870s the ranch was producing substantial crops and livestock that yielded an income of $10,000 a year. "Pete Kitchen hams" were a major portion of the business. In 1883 Kitchen sold the ranch for a substantial amount of money after the arrival of the railroad cut into his market. He continued to maintain mining and cattle interests and retired to Tucson, losing his money to gambling and loans to friends. Kitchen died on August 5, 1895 at age 77