As a newcomer to this county I am always interested in learning more about the area. Saturday the county historical society offered a tour of some sites that were not normally offered to the public and I took advantage by visiting a couple of them.
The Johnson League Ranch was established in 1905 and the ranch house, barns and some other buildings have been recently restored by new owners. Johnson and his brother had come to the area to make a new start after the great depression of 1873. He settled in Strawn and had success in coal mining and in selling cedar for railroad ties before buying the ranch. (A “league” is 4200 acres and refers to the size of the ranch).
According to the story his children died young and rather than being buried, they were kept in their bedrooms in Strawn where Mrs Johnson changed their clothes daily. When they moved to the ranch, a little wooden mauseleum was constructed near the house where their bodies were kept. In 1908 Palo Pinto Creek flooded and the mauseleum floated away. Ranch hands on horseback lassoed the little building and pulled it back to land.
Here is a picture of the ranch office with the little wooden mauseleum beyond it and a garage in the distance.
Afterwards the family built this stone mauseleum on a high point above the creek valley and put the children’s bodies in it.
They call this a deer barn. I talked to a lady who was the child of one of the Johnson employees. She was born on the ranch and grew up there. She said that when she was a child there were no deer on the ranch (I believe this was in the twenties). Mr Johnson imported deer and kept them in the barn. This seems ironic to me since the ranch is now a high-fence deer and wildlife hunting operation.
After leaving the ranch we went to Lover’s Retreat. We had been there once before but it was a worth a second visit. This was a swimming hole and picnic spot many years ago when it was right off the old Bankhead Highway. The main fun here was resting in the cool shade and listening to the stories of the old-timers who used to spend summer afternoons here back in the day.
Comments (2)
What an odd story, Bill. At first I thought ‘League’ was part of the owner’s name, but as you probably heard on the tour, a quick google search found out that it refers to the land itself: “The survey was an original Texas land grant and encompassed one league of land; thus the name Johnson League Ranch.”.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I added an explanation Annie. I forgot about that part. The original land grant was not to Johnson himself however; but to a Texas revolution hero who sold his grant.