GOOD OLD DAYS:

Newport-Mesa baby boomers had more than just the Fun Zone, Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm at their amusement park disposal when they were young.

Many also spent time at the long-defunct, mid-century Buffalo Ranch, which took up what is now a prime piece of real estate in Newport Beach.

The property was also famous for being the longtime base of famed architect William Pereira.

The only remaining testament at the site is a bison statue at the corner of Bonita Canyon Drive and MacArthur Boulevard; its grain silo now stands on the OC Fair & Event Center grounds.

The first 72 head of bison began roaming the Buffalo Ranch in 1954 thanks to entrepreneurs Gene Clark and Roy Shipley, according to a National Park Service report.

They rented the 100 acres of land from the Irvine Co., in hopes of competing with Knott’s Berry Farm and, the following year, another upstart theme park named Disneyland.

The duo added attractions such as a Native American village, petting zoo, reenactments, archery, miniature trains and tractors, buffalo burgers and a knickknacks-and-whatnot stand, Chief Push Ma-Ta-Ha’s Injun Tradum Store.

The project didn’t take off with the public. It closed in late 1959, and its remaining former four-legged occupants were sent packing back to Kansas.

Then along came one of the century’s greatest architects, who became enamored with the bucolic silo and chose to set up shop in it.

When William Pereira began designing the city of Irvine and UCI in the early 1960s, he chose Buffalo Ranch — rechristened Urbanus Square — as his one-of-a-kind office.

The silo, with its 360-degree-view, afforded a perfect vista of Irvine and Fashion Island, his other project.

“I’m here because I couldn’t bear not seeing what is happening now,” Pereira wrote in “UCI: The First Twenty-Five Years.”

In 1984, Pereira transferred his lease to William Lange, who operated Lange Financial Corp. from the site for 11 years.

In a show of nostalgia, Lange bought four bison to live onsite.

But when the nascent San Joaquin Hills toll road required Ford Road to be realigned, the silo was once again in the way of progress.

Lange held a goodbye celebration in February 1994 and auctioned off his bison.

The conical structure was put into storage. By that point, it had been cut down to only two stories in height.

The silo was taken out of storage and transferred to the fairgrounds by the Irvine Co. in 1997. It now sits in front of the Centennial Farm offices.

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (714) 966-4631 or at [email protected].