after his marriage, ellis returned to the okanagan and by the 1890s he had 20,000 heads of cattle and 31,000 acres of land from the south okanagan all the way to the canada–us border. mining companies provided a good market for his beef. although ellis claimed all of that land as his own, much of the land that his cattle roamed on was not actually owned by him, but he built up his empire based on grazing rights.