Alas, the photograph featured is not the one the inquiry was about, but another McKissick ranch house in the same vicinity.  The latter is distinct and can be seen along Highway 395, where a green meadow, with a tall stand of cottonwood trees surrounding an abandoned large two-story ranch house. In 1869/70 Daniel McKissick became the first permanent settler of Secret Valley. When the NCO Railroad was completed to Amedee, on the east side of Honey Lake, it created a lot of traffic for those headed north. The McKissick family established a stage stop/hotel to take advantage of the weary travelers. As time marches on, changes were on the horizon and by the the time the French family acquired it in 1925, the building had more or less been converted into a very large bunkhouse. Recently some one wrote a comment about it, and it appears below.

“The cottonwoods that previously lined both sides of the road approaching that old hotel are now gone. But the building remains, as evidenced by the following pictures and story assembled by creep girl who recently went there looking for ghosts for purposes of stimulation she apparently lacked. And I promise you, there were plenty of loud unseen forces at night upstairs at the time that me another cowboy lived downstairs in the 70’s working for a large cattle company.”

Notes From the Field: Abandoned Brothel of Secret Valley
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/notes-from-the-field-abandoned-brothel-of-secret-valley

Tim