Profile: The Luckey Ranch

My uncle lives on an old cattle ranch, just outside of San Antonio. Growing up, my sister and I spent many days exploring all of its abandoned buildings. They became the characters of our made-up stories, relics of past lives. When we weren’t imagining the people who filled the rooms of the homes left to decay, we were fishing the tanks. Once, I swear I saw a gator slide from the muddy bank into the dark waters.

This ranch—the Luckey Ranch—was a fixture of my childhood. The pecan trees that lined the drive to my uncle’s house were comforting and familiar. The irrigation ditches dug out years and years ago were curiosities to explore and the creeks were a place to fish for perch.

Over the years, the owner of the property started selling off pieces of the land to developers. Before my sister and I really knew what that meant, the first development took place. The hilly ranch land devolved into upturned earth, then cement, then houses built faster than I knew possible.

Within ten years, my uncle’s house was swallowed whole.

Not all of the land has been sold to developers, and the remaining parcels stand as reminders of the past. My uncles’ cows roam the fields where thousands of heads of cattle used to graze, and the pecan tree-lined driveway I once loved is no longer accessible. Instead, I have to drive through one of the neighborhoods—called “Luckey Ranch”—past rows and rows of tract houses, to arrive at an unassuming gate. A door to the past; to the real Luckey Ranch.

Even though rolling fields no longer stretch out as far as the eye can see, my uncle cares for the land as if nothing has changed. When I visit now, I am struck by the utter strangeness of it all. The fact that entire families’ lives are unfolding inside houses built on the land I grew up exploring.

It’s a snapshot of progress, of what “moving forward” looks like. Most days, it makes me pretty sad. But when we drive back to check on the cows or the bee hives—or stumble upon a fossilized shell—I feel a little bit like that kid again, exploring the Luckey and curious about what story I’ll come home with that day.

Not wanting more time to pass and the landscape to become completely unrecognizable, I asked my uncle if I could follow him around the ranch and document what life looks like on the Luckey. These are the images from that day.

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Since I published this blog, the stone barn you see featured in these photos has been torn down by developers.