711 Ranch
Spring Branch, Comal County, Texas
Marker Inscription
WWI veteran L.A. Nordan (1896-1969) was a successful oil and gas producer in south Texas. In 1949, he and his wife, Pearl (Neugent) Nordan (1896-1994), established the 711 Ranch in Comal County along the Guadalupe River, 18 miles northwest of New Braunfels. The ranch was named after Nordan's downtown San Antonio business address. He was appointed to the Texas State Parks Board in 1951. The Nordans contributed generously to education, the arts, their church, and medical research. Starting in the 1850s, this area was part of the Fischer Store, Rebecca Creek and Cranes Mill settlements. In eight transactions between 1949 and 1966, the Nordans purchased 51 parcels of property rooted in 35 individual land grants awarded between 1837 and 1888 to Republic of Texas patriots, railroads, Mexican Texans, and German and Swiss immigrants. The ranch extended from North Cranes Mill Road west to Devils Hollow and one mile south of the river over 7.5 miles northward. The Nordans created a world-class ranching operation, producing prize-winning Santa Gertrudis cattle and Columbia sheep. They focused on conservation, wildlife preservation and education. They valued their many talented, long-term employees. The ranch owners took care to preserve Ninteenth-century structures and cemeteries located on the sprawling property. From 1961 to 1963, almost 2,000 acres were acquired by the U.S. government for the Canyon Lake Reservoir. In 1999, some 7,180 acres of ranch land was sold and soon became the Mystic Shores subdivision. The contributions of L.A. and Pearl Nordan significantly added to the rich heritage of the area. (2019)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After building a fortune in South Texas oil and gas, World War I veteran L.A. Nordan and his wife Pearl established the sprawling 711 Ranch along the Guadalupe River in 1949, stitching together dozens of parcels rooted in Republic of Texas land grants once held by patriots, immigrants, and Mexican Texans. The Nordans built a world-class operation famous for prize Santa Gertrudis cattle and Columbia sheep, while championing conservation, wildlife, and the preservation of the property's old structures and cemeteries. Portions were later absorbed into Canyon Lake Reservoir and, eventually, a modern subdivision.
Why it matters
The 711 Ranch shows how mid-twentieth-century Texas ranching blended big-business ambition with land stewardship, and how sprawling private ranches were steadily reshaped by reservoirs and suburban growth.
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Related people
- · L.A. Nordan
- · Pearl Neugent Nordan
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fischer Homestead
Spring Branch, TX
This homestead at the springs of Rebecca Creek sat on land granted to Texas pioneer James Baker for his service in the Texas War for Independence. German immigrant John Heinrich Fischer bought the tract in 1860 — likely running cattle there as early as 1857 — and raised his family on its vital water source. His daughter Anna and her husband William Klinger owned the homestead from 1881.
German Pioneers in Texas
Sattler vicinity, TX
Between 1844 and 1847 a society of German nobles, the Mainzer Adelsverein, sponsored the emigration of thousands of Germans to Texas, who founded New Braunfels in 1845 and Fredericksburg in 1846. Pushing west, these farmers, artisans, scholars, and scientists endured epidemic and privation, and a treaty with the Comanche opened millions of acres between the Llano and Colorado rivers to settlement. Much of the land they first settled now lies beneath Canyon Lake.
Saint Mary's Help of Christians Catholic Church
Blanco vicinity, TX
When the first Catholic families settled Blanco County in the 1850s, they worshiped in homes and halls until land was bought in 1887. Through the efforts of Father Virgilius Draessel and the people of Twin Sisters, this stone church was built and dedicated in 1889, its foundation quarried a mile away and its other materials hauled more than thirty miles over rough trails. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1965.
Adam Becker Homestead
Spring Branch, TX
German native Adam Becker came to Texas in 1845 to join Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels and the Adelsverein colonization effort, helping build Fredericksburg before establishing his own homestead here by 1852. He raised cattle and built a house of locally quarried stone and hand-hewn cypress cut from the nearby Guadalupe River. Becker became a U.S. citizen in 1860 and, at his death in 1901, was buried in the cemetery on his own land.