Fair Oaks Ranch
14509 US 59 S, Berclair, TXThe Fair Oaks Ranch Rural Historic Landscape District covers 10,352 acres in southeastern Texas and is an excellent example of an early Texas cattle ranch, with buildings, structures, and sites from the ranch's 150-year history intact and in good condition. The ranch is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in the area of Agriculture, and Architecture, at the state level of significance.
Fair Oaks Ranch meets the guidelines for listing as a Rural Historic Landscape District due to its historic and continued use of the land for stock raising and the integrity of the many cultural resources associated with ranch activities that are found within the district. Fair Oaks is a rare artifact of the ranching heritage of Goliad County and a remarkably intact example of the type of cattle ranch found in this portion of Texas. The many cultural resources located on the ranch tell the story of cattle ranching in south Texas-from the first ranch headquarters to the extensive second headquarters complex complete with ranch office, ranch hand housing, wash house, barns, and pens, to the third ranch headquarters and other cattle-related buildings and sites. The ranch's integrity is remarkable: the physical boundaries remain as they were in 1905; the land use patterns and property layout remain largely unchanged from the early 1900s when the ranch was fully developed; there are very few noncontributing resources present; and the family who established it has been operating it for six generations. This integrity makes it unique among other ranches in the state. Fair Oaks also meets criterion for the excellence of its individual resources, which embody the distinctive characteristics of ranch buildings from this region and time period. Present at Fair Oaks Ranch is most of the landscape characteristics of a rural historic landscape as defined by National Register Bulletin 30. These landscape characteristics, such as circulation networks, patterns of spatial organization, land uses and activities, and vegetation, exhibit a high degree of integrity. There are very few non-contributing resources and the many contributing resources such as houses, barns, fencing, auxiliary farm structures, farm roads, stock ponds, windmills, and the grazing land itself, have been altered very little. Fair Oaks possesses an extraordinary sense of place and retains a very high degree of integrity.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.