Frijole Ranch: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, National Park Service

Froeschauer, Peggy

The Frijole Ranch Cultural Landscape is a component landscape at the base of the eastern escarpment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, located in Culberson County of western Texas. This cultural landscape inventory unit, which is part of the larger 960-acre ranch, encompasses all the features that contribute to the landscape’s historic significance. Presently in good condition, the Frijole Ranch provides an excellent example of a historic vernacular ranch/farmstead operation in the trans-Pecos area of West Texas. The period of significance, 1876 to 1970, represents the years during which the site operated as a working ranch. In addition to providing evidence of early settlement and ranching in the region, the ranch reveals the progression of ranching history through a continuum of use stretching nearly a century. The National Register of Historic Places (NR) listed 9 acres of the Frijole Ranch in 1978. As a result of the 1995 Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) for the Frijole Ranch, the 2005 CLI recommends an expansion of the site’s boundary to include a 32.5-acre area. The Frijole Ranch landscape includes a ranch house, school house, spring house, bath house, bunk house, pump house (milk house), and barn. Other contributing features include the stone wall enclosure and walk ways that define clustered work areas of the ranch. Various gates, stepping stones, planting beds, steps, and a hollowed-log hog trough are small-scale features that contribute to the integrity of the ranch site. Two fresh-water springs, Manzanita and Frijole, are contributing features to the Frijole Ranch cultural landscape. The spring house covering Frijole Spring and its accompanying irrigation troughs and ditches also add to the historic significance. The non-native vegetation (gardens and orchards) cultivated by ranchers who occupied the site, a historic road trace to Manzanita Spring, and agricultural fields provide evidence of the adaptations that occupants of the site have made over time. The native vegetation of the surrounding Chihuahan Desert and rangeland radiates out from the functional area of the ranch, contributing to the site’s setting. Although not fully analyzed by archeologists at this time, the presence of prehistoric middens and the remnants of mescal cooking pits testify to human occupation for thousands of years. These archeological features, along with the potential for the discovery of more archeological evidence at the site, also contribute to the significance of Frijole Ranch. Following the establishment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in 1972, the National Park Service (NPS) has managed the site as the Frijole Ranch Cultural Museum, providing interpretation of ranching in the trans-Pecos area of western Texas for park visitors. Changes to the landscape have altered its appearance, some as a result of natural processes and others due the development of the ranch for operational purposes. The Frijole Ranch retains integrity in location, setting, design, association, feeling, workmanship, and materials. The recommended boundary expansion allows for the inclusion of significant contributing features to the Frijole Ranch site that presently lie outside the NR boundary.

Frijole Ranch: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, National Park Service

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