The area of Tuttle Ranch was on the edge of the Umatilla Reservation in the John Day Valley in Oregon, located approximately eleven miles up the John Day River from Prairie City. In 1844, during the Cayuse War, Major Henry A. G. Lee established a military outpost there, which became known as Lee's Encampment. The main building on the ranch was built in 1863 during the Canyon City gold rush. Before the area became Tuttle Ranch in the 1940s, it was known for its hot springs and was called Blue Mountain Hot Springs or Blue Mountain Springs Ranch.

Clarence Ewing Tuttle was born on May 17, 1884, in Hastings, Minnesota. He was a businessman who, over his lifetime, held many positions in various companies, mostly on the east coast. Among other roles, he was president of the Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad and Coal Company from 1923-1925, vice president of Payson & Co., a New York City bank, from 1928-1935, and president of Rustless Iron and Steel corporation starting in 1930. Tuttle was also an avid horseman. He owned Double Brandy, a foal that won over $130,000 in horse races. He began breeding Hereford cattle around 1938, and bought the Blue Mountain Hot Springs ranch in 1940. The first cattle on the ranch were shipped from Tuttle's Maryland farm in 1945. Due to his various business obligations, Tuttle was rarely at the ranch. Irving B. Hazeltine, the sheriff and tax collector of Grant County, oversaw the day-to-day activities of the ranch and corresponded regularly with Tuttle. Hazeltine died in November 1960; Tuttle died in October 1962 in Portland, Oregon, and was buried in Baltimore, Maryland.