Fair Oaks Ranch

Fair Oaks Ranch is a 10,352-acre cattle ranch in Goliad County, Texas, near Berclair, founded in 1859 by Richard M. and Louisa Lucas on an initial 142 acres. It began with sheep, then shifted to cattle, especially Herefords. The ranch grew to its present size between 1880 and 1905 and is organized around four building clusters: the first headquarters with a circa 1870s house, a second headquarters with a circa 1890 house, ranch hand housing, wash house, office and barns, a tenant house and barn complex, and a third headquarters with a 1954 ranch house. Cemeteries, mesquite-post fencing, stock ponds, caliche pits, windmills and ranch roads add to the landscape. It has been used for grazing rather than crops. Its boundaries and layout remain much as they were in 1905, and the Lucas family has operated it for six generations. Few modern intrusions exist, which gives the ranch an unusually high level of integrity.