Rancho

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Rancho, out there in Gonzales County. Now, every good Texas story starts with somebody buying some land, and this one's no different. In 1849, a man named Paul Murray purchased a piece of ground and set up a country store on it.

Murray had come down from Mississippi, and before long, a good number of his Mississippi neighbors followed him. They came looking for farmland, which makes all the sense in the world. But here's where the story takes a turn.

When they got there, they found unbranded range cattle everywhere, and free for the taking. Well, the plow didn't stand much of a chance against that kind of temptation. They set it down, picked up the cowboy life, and didn't look back.

That shift, from farming folk to ranching folk, is how the settlement got its name. Rancho. A ranching culture had taken hold, and the name said so plainly.

Now, Murray's store wasn't just sitting out in the middle of nowhere. It was right at the crossroads of trails leading to San Antonio, Gonzales, Seguin, Cuero, Goliad, and Indianola. Six important settlements, all connected through that one spot.

Travelers passed through, trade moved through, and Rancho grew. By 1855, the place had itself an official post office. Schools and churches followed, along with several businesses.

It was becoming a real town. Then came 1866, and this is the part worth slowing down for. Local stockmen were gathering cattle herds to be driven north to market, driven by Rancho cowboys, and somebody had to figure out how to tell whose cattle was whose when they all ran together on open, unfenced range.

So some of the earliest open range branding codes in Texas originated right here in Rancho that year. Those codes gave the whole system a way to mark the cattle, track them, keep them sorted out when every pasture ran into every other pasture with no fence in sight. That's not a small thing.

That's the kind of problem-solving that made the Texas cattle industry go. So there stood Rancho, a crossroads town with a post office, a school, two churches, a cowboy workforce, and a legitimate claim to some of the earliest branding history in the state. And then, in 1906, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad came through Gonzales County, and it did not come through Rancho.

It bypassed the town entirely. Two miles to the south, a new railroad town called Nixon took shape, and Rancho's people started making the short, quiet walk toward it, taking their buildings with them, literally. By 1911, the post office had closed.

Most of the residents had relocated. Most of the buildings had been moved. And before long, virtually no visible evidence of the town remained.

Now, the marker doesn't let Rancho be just a sad footnote. It calls the town's short existence a reminder of the hundreds of similar towns that fell prey to the railroads crossing Texas in the late nineteenth century. Fell prey.

That's the phrase. Because it wasn't just Rancho. Towns all across this state lived and breathed and built schools and churches and post offices, and then a railroad drew a line two miles away and that was that.

Rancho just happens to be one of the ones the marker remembered.

What the marker says

Rancho grew up around the country store of Paul Murray, on land he purchased in 1849. His store was located at the intersection of roads that led to the important settlements of San Antonio, Gonzales, Seguin, Cuero, Goliad and Indianola. Murray had come to Texas from Mississippi and was soon followed by many of his Mississippi neighbors. They came in search of farm land, but soon abandoned the plow to adopt the cowboy culture of the area, as unbranded range cattle were everywhere and free for the taking. The name "Rancho" was given to the settlement as a ranching culture developed. Some of the earliest open range branding codes in Texas originated here in 1866, as local stockmen were gathering cattle herds to be driven to northern markets by Rancho cowboys. These codes facilitated the system of marking and tracking the cattle that mingled together in open, unfenced ranges. A post office was officially established in 1855, and Rancho grew to have several businesses, as well as a school and two churches. Rancho began a rapid decline in population when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad bypassed the town in 1906, and many residents relocated to the new railroad town of Nixon, two miles to the south. The post office closed in 1911, and by that time, many of Rancho's buildings had been moved to Nixon and most of Rancho's residents had relocated to the new town. Although virtually no visible evidence of the town of Rancho remains, the town's short existence stands as a reminder of the hundreds of similar towns that fell prey to the railroads that crossed Texas during the late 19th century.