In 1899 from innkeeper Lydia Sisson, the widow of landowner and outdoorsman Justin Sisson, Wheeler bought extensive land called The Bend in Siskiyou County, in the Cascade Range south by southeast of Mount Shasta on the McCloud River. He called this holding the Wheeler Ranch, and he built a hunting lodge on the river at Horseshoe Bend—its cornerstone laid in 1899. The lodge was designed by San Francisco architect Willis Polk, and included an 800-book library with room for hundreds of Native American baskets. Wheeler directed Polk to give the lodge a fish tower—a high study with a view, and two windows which were aquariums containing local trout. A Latin inscription over the entrance indicated this room was a temple to fishing: piscatoribus sacrum. The Wheeler family stayed at the ranch many a summer.