South Texas ranch hits market for the first time in over 140 years

By Katharine Jose.

During the frenetic rural Texas real estate boom of the last several years, it hasn’t been totally uncommon to see “legacy” ranches—where the same family has owned the property for generations—come on the market. Just in the last year, we’ve covered the Mt. Solitude Ranch near San Antonio, Powderhorn Ranch on the Coastal Bend and, closer to home, the Tigner Ranch.

But even among these older properties, it’s rare that a ranch can directly link its history to a historical event as pivotal to the state as the Texas Revolution.

Rancho El Saeno, a 600-acre spread in South Texas just listed by Foster Farm and Ranch, can do just that. Not only has the property been owned by the same family since 1880, but that set of owners bought it from Elder B. Barton, who received the ranch in exchange for his role in Texas’ war for independence from Mexico.

Barton fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, the last conflict of the Texas Revolution, which took place in 1836 near present-day La Porte. After the war was over, veterans who fought in key battles were awarded land across the state, usually around 640 acres, according to the Bullock Museum.

After the war, Barton, who was reportedly born in New York in 1806, moved to South Texas, married and proceeded to have 16 children, according to a Hidalgo County historical marker.

Barton received a couple of different land grants, the San Jacinto Museum notes, and according to the listing for Rancho El Saeno, this particular one he sold to distant relatives of his around 1840.

It has not been sold since. And it looks much the same as it did then. Listing agent JL Pepe Guerra said that, unlike most properties in the area, the land at Rancho El Saeno was never cleared, which is why four rare plants—the dragon fruit plant, palo verde tree, tenaza plant and ocote—appear around the ranch.