Wilson, Homer, Ranch

Blue Creek Ranch is a cluster of ranch buildings in Big Bend National Park, built after Homer Wilson bought land west of the Chisos Mountains in 1929. Wilson, born in Del Rio in 1892, kept his headquarters at Oak Canyon but built a substantial secondary house at Blue Creek, which became the productive heart of the operation. The 24 by 60 foot house used local materials: stone, sand and gravel from the canyon, timber from the Chisos Mountains and reeds from the Rio Grande for the ceiling. A massive stone fireplace anchors the living room. Nearby are a small bunkhouse, storeroom, cistern, circular horse corral and dipping vat. Wilson died in 1943, and the family left by the January 1945 deadline after the land was deeded to Texas for park use. The ranch is valued as the best example of ranching within the park and as a setting for interpreting twentieth-century ranch life. The buildings are now unoccupied and weathering.