After he was married in 1892, Hanley and his wife Clara made their ranch a showplace for worldly guests who wanted to enjoy the privacy and open space of southeastern Oregon.

In Steens Mountain in Oregon's High Desert Country, E. R. Jackman wrote: "His riders swore that in all of his drives he never once arrived with fewer cattle than he had at the start."

His peers included Peter French, the driving force behind the French-Glenn Cattle Company and owner of the vast P Ranch; John Devine, the first white settler in Harney County and founder of the White Horse Ranch; and Henry Miller, head of the Miller and Lux Company that controlled over 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km2) of land in California, Oregon, and Nevada.

[1][4][7] Hanley's property included the lower Silver Creek drainage and several lakes that provided water to irrigate his ranch lands.

The ranch's riparian areas, lake shore wetlands, and grassy meadows provided habitat for migratory birds traveling along the Pacific Flyway.

Numerous birds including great white egrets, herons, pelicans, wild swans, Canada geese, and many duck species nested on the Double O Ranch.

Some geese were so sure of being fed at the Double O Ranch that they made their appetites known by attacking the cookhouse door with their wings until grain was put out for them.

Hanley often invited friends to visit the Double O Ranch in the fall just to watch the great flocks of migrating geese and swans.

His personal political views were closely aligned with his friend and fellow Bull Moose progressive Theodore Roosevelt.

He also included among his close friends business tycoons such as James J. Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway and well known literary figures like CES Wood, poet Edwin Markham, and painter Childe Hassam.

[11][12] Before heading to Alaska on the cross-country flight that took his life, Will Rogers stopped in Burns to refuel his aircraft and to see his friend Bill Hanley.

[6] Hanley lobbied his powerful friend, James Hill, to extend his Great Northern railroad system into central Oregon.

He finished third in a five-person race, doing particularly well in Harney and Malheur counties in rural eastern Oregon and in the state's urban center of Portland.

The Round-Up's organizers had invited Hanley to attend a day of rodeo events which were dedicated to the Sage of Harney County.

[2][3][4][8] In 1941, the United States Government purchased 14,751 acres (59.70 km2) of Double O Ranch land from the Hanley family for $118,000, adding it to the adjacent Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to expand shorebird habitat and protect critical waterfowl nesting areas.