The Frijole Ranch

THE FRIJOLE RANCH

Frijole Ranch house
NPS photo

The weather was perfect, and even though we were back in the exposed desert area of the Park, the air was still cool and dry, probably due to our elevation of 6,000 feet. After sitting for a while to recover from the Devil’s Hall Trail hike, we decided to make the short drive to the historic Frijole Ranch. The large size of the Ranch headquarters was surprising for its setting on the eastern side of the Capitan Reef, which was out in the desert and in the middle of nowhere as far as civilization was concerned. There were several buildings, including a spacious ranch house and a small school house, but I wondered at first how the pioneers could have survived here. We got an important clue when we walked to the front of the property and discovered a small screened-in building in the front yard. Water was flowing out of its north side like a small brook coming out of nowhere. It was one of the precious few springs in the desert. The water from Frijole Spring had sustained the pioneers, and it continued to sustain the large deciduous trees in the ranch yard that seemed out of place in the surrounding sparse vegetation of the Chihuahuan Desert.

Native American artifacts have been found at the Frijole Ranch site, indicating that humans have lived here for centuries. The first permanent modern structure on this site was built in 1876 by the Rader brothers as headquarters for their small cattle ranch. During the 20th Century, the residents of the Frijole Ranch included John Thomas Smith, who lived here from 1906 to 1942 with his wife and 10 children and made a decent living truck farming with the produce from a 15-acre orchard and garden northeast of the house. Over the years, apples, peaches, apricots, plums, pears, figs, pecans, blackberries, strawberries, currants, and corn thrived on the water supplied by Frijole Spring. The family also raised cattle, horses, pigs, and chickens. The ranch was purchased in 1942 by Judge J.C. Hunter of Van Horne, Texas. His ranch foreman, Noel Kincaid, lived in the house with his family until the land was acquired by the National Park Service. Judge Hunter was a conservationist who was one of the first to recognize the importance of the area. As early as 1925 he had initiated attempts to formally designate the Guadalupe Mountains region as a park but to no avail. He eventually acquired over 67,000 acres of the area but never succeeded in convincing state or federal officials to preserve the land as a park. Finally in 1966 his son, J.C. Hunter Jr., fulfilled his father’s dream by selling the ranch to the National Park Service at the bargain price of $22 per acre. The Hunter Ranch along with the donation of over 5,000 acres of Wallace Pratt’s Manzanita Ranch and its McKittrick Canyon comprised the bulk of land that would be officially designated later that same year by President Lyndon Johnson as the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

WALLACE PRATT AND THE MANZANITA RANCH

After leaving the Frijole Ranch, we drove back out to the highway and traveled 7 miles northeast and about 4 miles off the road and through the desert toward a northern stretch of the Capitan Reef that enclosed McKittrick Canyon. Although we had no intention of hiking any more that day, we wanted to get oriented for the next day’s hike in the Canyon. The small visitor center at the trailhead housed little more than a large office for the Ranger on duty. There was an open-air exhibit in the sheltered porch where we attempted to absorb as much information as possible from the displays, and we watched an interesting short documentary film made from an interview with Wallace Pratt. Pratt was an important figure in the history of the Park and was largely responsible for making this geologically unique area a National Park. He was the first geologist to be hired by the Humble Oil and Refining Company and apparently was a very good one, because he was responsible for the discovery of more oil in the Permian Basin than anyone else in the early days of the 20th Century. He fell in love with McKittrick Canyon, thinking that it was “the most beautiful spot in Texas”. So, he eventually bought 14,000 acres that included his beloved canyon, and he named the property the “Manzanita Ranch” after having mistakenly identified the Texas madrone as a manzanita tree based on his conversations with some of the locals. He may not have gotten the name of the tree right, but he understood the geology of the area better than anyone else at that time, and he talked about it at length in the film. More about Wallace Pratt and his home in McKittrick Canyon later.

LIONS AND DEER AND BEARS—OH MY!

When I met the Park Ranger on duty, we struck up a conversation about the dangers of hiking in wilderness areas. He showed me how the Park Service rescues injured hikers—at least the lucky ones who could call 911 or send a messenger before disappearing from existence. There was a metal-framed stretcher in the back room with a single wheel so it could be pushed or pulled like a wheel barrow. That would make a pretty rough ride over the rocks if run by a single operator, so they usually had several people carry it by hand. Seeing the stretcher gave us a new reason to avoid getting injured in the Park. I asked him about the wild life, and he said that mountain lions and black bears live there but are rarely ever seen, being very shy of humans. He gave me some pointers on how to get close to deer if I wanted to get some good pictures, such as "take a step when the deer takes a bite".  In the same breath, however, he admitted that he should not be giving me such dangerous advice. He cautioned me not to get too close, because deer, despite their angelic appearance, can be "mean as hell", and they will attack you and try to kill you if they feel trapped. We also learned that hiking and camping in McKittrick Canyon at night is forbidden (as if I wanted to anyway). He didn’t say why, but I figured that part of the reason was so you don’t get your butt kicked by a mountain lion or something worse. Most of the dangerous animals in these parts are nocturnal. For safety in the wilderness, the bottom line is “don’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and don’t do anything stupid”.

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