Rancho Estelle

Rancho Estelle is a cluster of ruined farm buildings on the north side of Park Route 9 in Big Bend National Park, between Castalon and Santa Elena Canyon. James Sublett, an early large-scale farmer of the Rio Grande flood plain, bought four sections of land here and, as Grand Canyon Farms, he and his associates operated the farm. The surviving structures include an adobe farmhouse, a farm hand's casita, an adobe shed, a stone farmhouse that probably housed workers, and the Dorgan Residence. The Dorgan house is a one-story adobe and stone home with a large square main room, a two-way petrified wood fireplace serving as a structural pier, and log beams forming a nearly flat hipped roof. All of the buildings are roofless or deteriorating. The site was listed for its value in showing flood plain farming along the Rio Grande and for the architectural merit of the Dorgan house.