*Bexar Regional Watershed Mgmt. Upper Leon Creek dam LC16A-site #5

Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm Significance:

• National Register of Historic Places District - early Texas Hill Country neighborhood
• Nesting endangered species – Golden cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo
• Critical and diverse native wildlife habitat
• Working cattle ranch for 150 years – Texas Longhorn Cattle (historic WR & Yates lines)
• Site of last Indian raid in Bexar County
• Nature tourism (TPWD Heart of Texas Wildlife Trail, East)
• Historic cemeteries
• Prehistoric sites (ca 4000 BC)
• Pristine springs, seeps, creek, drainages, wetlands
• Geological significance (Trinity Aquifer, Edwards Aquifer Contributing Zone, Balcones Fault)
• Rare native plants

The Maverick Ranch – Fromme Farm lies over the Trinity Aquifer and is part of the Contributing Zone of the Edwards Aquifer. There are pristine springs and seeps on the MkR-FF which eventually reach an intermittent creek, one of the headwaters of the Leon Creek. One of the northernmost faults of the Balcones Fault system runs through the Ranch.

The Maverick family conducts careful land stewardship in order to maintain and promote native Texas plant and wildlife diversity and viability. Both of Texas’ endangered birds, the Golden-cheeked Warbler and the Black-capped Vireo, nest on the MkR-FF and are documented and yearly censused on the property. Rapid destruction of critical habitat in northwest Bexar County has placed both birds and all wildlife in serious peril. Several ecological regions converge in Bexar County giving it the most diverse wildlife and plant species of Texas counties (there are only two other counties with this wildlife and plant species diversity, Comal and Hays). The Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm contributes to this diversity due to its location and several rare native plants are found here.

Three historic homesteads comprising an early settlement neighborhood, an unusual circumstance to be found within one fenceline, ensured the 1979 listing of the entire Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm as a district on the National Register of Historic Places. There are prehistoric sites within the MkR-FF and the last Indian raid in Bexar County occurred on here in 1870. Texas cattle drives of the 1870-1880s coming up from South Texas passed through the MkR-FF along the creek, eventually joining the Western Cattle Trail. The cattle were overnighted in high rock-walled pens on the MkR-FF which still exist. The first schoolhouse in the area is located here. Ernst Hermann and Emma Murck Altgelt, owners before the Mavericks, are buried in an old cemetery on the Maverick Ranch.

Ernst Altgelt founded Comfort, Texas and developed the King William area of San Antonio (a National Register of Historic Places District). George Madison Maverick, who purchased the Maverick Ranch in 1907, was a son of Samuel Augustus and Mary A. Maverick, early Texas pioneers. His wife Mary Vance Maverick was a daughter of John and Rowena Vance of Castroville, owners of the Vance Store (now the Landmark Inn, a National Register of Historic Places site owned by the State of Texas.). George Maverick, a lawyer, was known in San Antonio as the ‘Father of Houston Street’ for his successful efforts (1870-1890s) to build a viable commercial area north of Commerce Street. Maverick worked with his mother to shape her diaries into what is now a classic Texana primary source, Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick. His daughter, Rena Maverick Green started legal aid in San Antonio and the San Antonio Conservation Society. The Maverick family named and gave Travis Park to the citizens of San Antonio.

The owners of the Maverick Ranch – Fromme Farm, recognize the importance and value of their Texas landmark with its open spaces, endangered species and critical native wildlife habitat. For six generations they have acknowledged their responsibility to preserve and perpetuate it for the benefit of future generations of Texans. They have worked for 101 years to achieve this. They ask for your help as once again they undertake the difficult fight against eminent domain and its destruction. The Maverick family welcomes all assistance and help toward their success.