Knaus Ranch History
(If you are not interested in ranch history please go to the next subject-Hunt details in located in the Overview, Reservations, and Rate section of this site.)
Most of the Knaus Ranch has been in our family since the late 1800's. Originally the ranch began as a land grant to the Texas and Pacific Railroad. The original ranch was part of the Alexander Young Estate and was inherited by my Grandmother Omino Knaus Young, then, as time went on I inherited my grandmother's part.
The property was taken over by the US Army during World War II and used as a part of Camp Barkley. The US Army sold the ranch back to the family at the end of world war II. We still find old ammo clips and even parts of tanks and trucks. If you like to use a metal finder the first sounds begin about every five feet for something or other left there by the solders on maneuver during world war 2
All of our property fences were turn down from the Army maneuvers, The water wells were plugged with rocks, and all of the roads were destroyed. About the only thing left intact was a few of the old barbed wire fences , down, but not destroyed. Some of these fences were built in 1897. Some of that barbed wire is still in place, but much of it has been replaced. We do find a relic of the WWII Army field training periodically, in fact, using a metal detector, a person can spend hours digging up old military gear. Our most recent find was an unexploded bomb that was used in a practice bombing raid.
I returned to Abilene in 1991 to begin reclaiming the land. In conjunction with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, we began to clean up the area by digging out the uncontrolled cedar trees ( actually they are Juniper trees, but, everyone calls them 'Cedar trees'), and with a series of controlled burning we burned two thousand acres of these junk trees to ashes. Then, we began replanting of five different kinds of native grass suitable for this climate.
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When these juniper trees burn, the fire is intense, but the smoke has a very aromatic blended flavor with a pleasant smell of turpentine. (I know, strange, but the smoke does smell good)
Later, I purchased three adjoining ranches, the Shouse ranch, the Swain ranch, and the George Campbell ranch. I then began to replant the new ranches with the same kinds of grass that we planted on the main ranch. The Boyett ranch, another addition, has some 480 acres with mountain tops, streams, valleys, and great brush cover.
This year we have added the Chanda Hughes ranch on the South side. This ranch is especially important as it has three good sized water tanks, and two large fields that we just planted in wheat, oats, turnips, and misc. other wild seeds.
To maintain some good bush and brush cover, especially for the deer and turkey population, we worked with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, a Division of the Texas A&M University System and completed what is called 'Brush Sculpturing' on the land. This keeps much of the ground cover, but trims paths through the heavy brush. We do this by using a bulldozer pushing and brush hog mowing to keep the fresh growth of leaves available for the deer and other animals.
Below I have included a few of the photos that show the area and what it is like including a few photos of the wild flowers, a photo showing a Bob White Quail in the flowers, and the other photo show the cleared out areas of cedar and the resultant pleasing area for the deer, yet maintaining ground cover, and the production of food. Two of the lower photos are taken during the fall. The leaves are this color in November and early December, the flower photos are done in the spring.
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