Film spotlight: a 762-acre slice of Texas Hill Country
If you’re not from Texas, the name Mrs. Baird might not ring a bell. Mention it in Austin or Houston or Fort Worth, though, and nostrils flare with muscle memory – warm yeast, melting butter, crust crackling under a serrated knife. That’s because for over a hundred years, Mrs. Baird’s Bread has been a Texas pantry staple.
The eponymous Mrs. Baird – Ninnie Baird – launched the bakery in 1908 after her husband, William, died and she faced the small terror of feeding eight children alone. It started modestly. Neighbors arrived with coins and compliments. Then, the orders began piling up. By 1928, the original wood-frame bakery in Fort Worth had ballooned nine times. A one-horse route morphed into fleets of delivery trucks idling at four industrial hubs. When Ninnie died in 1961, her company produced one of every four loaves sold in Texas. Today, aisles from Amarillo to Brownsville still stack her legacy in neat, fragrant rows.
What began as a mother’s bid to fill eight hungry bellies grew into an enterprise that allowed those same children to shape legacies of their own. Legacy certainly guided Ninnie’s son, Roland Baird, who in 1951 veered west of Austin, climbed the limestone ridges near Johnson City and purchased 762 acres draped across Miller Creek. For seventy-five years, Baird Ranch has served as weekend refuge, working cattle operation and quasi-time capsule – a place where the Hill Country rewinds to a world before billboards and highway roar. Now the family is ready to pass it on, listing the spread for $11.5 million.
Miller Creek is more than a postcard ribbon – it invites swimming holes in summer and reliable fishing runs year-round. (Moreland Properties)
“I would love for another family to enjoy it as much as we have,” says the ranch’s current owner and Ninnie’s great-granddaughter, Janet Rasmussen. “I’m hoping it’s someone who takes in the details.”
Details, indeed, unfurl across every dip and ridge of the property. Miller Creek braids through almost 4,000 feet of frontage stretching toward the Pedernales River. A resident herd of longhorns ambles between Live and Red Oak savannas. Coyotes slink low along caliche roads. Possums, porcupines and ring-tailed cats claim the night shift. Each spring, wildflowers and songbirds return, repainting the pastures. “It’s like greeting old friends again,” Rasmussen adds.
The human footprint, on the other hand, is relatively modest. A 2,487-square-foot ranch house, a foreman’s cabin and a simple guest cottage tuck into the fold of old oaks. Barns, stock tanks and low cattle guards stitch the land together for livestock and wildlife alike. Though the gate lies just six miles east of downtown Johnson City – roughly equidistant from Austin, Fredericksburg, Marble Falls and Blanco – the outside world feels remote. “You can get deep into this ranch and not hear any sounds but the birds and the animals, the wind and the trees,” Rasmussen says.
Each spring, Central Texas explodes into color as firewheels, bluebonnets and golden greenthreads push through the prairie grasses. (Moreland Properties)
Safeguarding that hush has been a family mandate. Rasmussen’s grandmother wrote it into the land itself, granting a conservation easement that bars heavy infrastructure. No future owner can string a neon corridor along the creek. The measure, Rasmussen says, carries forward the Bairds’ pledge to nurture a Texas legacy that predates them by millennia. “According to an archaeologist I know, some of the artifacts we find up here are about 4,000 years old. So there have been people here enjoying this view for a long time.” With vigilance, the Baird family has ensured the view will endure for generations to come.
The listing for 892 Baird Ranch Road is held by Carolyn Vogel of Moreland Properties.
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