Sparks-Tinnin purchased all of Jasper Harrell's ranches for $900,000. At that time, the Harrell ranches consisted of approximately 30,000 head of cattle ranging over a vast area of Nevada and Idaho. Very little of that land was owned outright. Sparks-Tinnin would obtain small portions of land surrounding a water source, and then deny other operations use of that water. This allowed it to control vast areas of public land that it did not own. Sparks-Tinnin would have an employee file for a homestead on the land that it wished to own, and then sell that land back to the company, as an individual could only file for one homestead in a lifetime. At its peak, Sparks-Tinnin was said to control 6% of the land in Nevada. In 1885, Sparks moved to his 1,640 acre (6.64 km²) Alamo Ranch, located in the Steamboat Springs area just south of Reno, Nevada. There he built a "hobby" herd of pure-blood Hereford cattle. Sparks became famous at western livestock auctions by paying ridiculous sums for pedigreed Hereford cattle. By purchasing stock from other breeders rather than breeding his own, Sparks' herd was soon unbeatable at livestock shows. Sparks' sale of lesser cattle from his herd helped establish the Hereford as the dominant breed in Nevada. Sparks also raised "exotic" animals such as bison and deer at the Alamo Ranch. The Sparks-Tinnin operation continued to grow throughout the 1880s until it, like all other western cattle operations, suffered a severe setback in the harsh winter of 1889–1890. During that winter the temperature reached −42 degrees Fahrenheit (−41 degrees Celsius) in Elko, and the range was covered in deep snow from January through March. At that time most large cattle operations in Nevada kept their cattle on the open range year round, with no supplemental feed in the winter. Losses of cattle on the range were catastrophic. In the spring of 1890 it was reported that one could walk for a hundred miles along the Humboldt River on cow carcasses, and floating carcasses jammed against bridges in Elko, causing flooding. Sparks later stated that of his herd of about 45,000 head, only 15,000 survived. He also claimed that of the survivors, 90% had the "white faces characteristic of Herefords". These were probably the descendants of Longhorn brood cows and Hereford bulls. As range cattle operations of the day typically ran one bull per twenty brood cows