Ammansville tract:

 This property is located in the rolling hills of the Fayette Prairie, a finger of the tallgrass bluestem ecozone that extends south into central Texas from the Great Plains.  The tract is found about 7 miles south of La Grange, in Fayette County, following the banks of the sandstone-bed Williams Creek, and cut by the springflows of Cedar Branch. 

The land was first settled in the late 19th century by German immigrants, including the Muras and Yanda families.  The property was used to grow cotton as a cash crop, along with small truck gardens to feed the families on the land.  By the 1930s, however, the collapse of cotton prices, together with a damaging combination of erosive soils and steep slopes, had ended the days of intensive cultivation.   

In the days since, this "old field" land has gradually healed and returned to a grassland, including both exotics that have naturalized here, such as KR Bluestem and Japanese Brome, and, increasingly, the well-adapted native grasses, such as Little Bluestem, Indiangrass, and a variety of forbs, most notably the beautiful Blue Bell.  Through cross-fencing, low stocking rates, and reintroducing native seed through "bale-busting" (shredding and broadcasting bales of native prairie grass), we hope to urge the return of the native prairie ecosystem.

We take pride in our efforts to monitor, protect and restore the land, and are grateful for the generous support and recognition of our work by the Texas Parks and Wildlife's Lone Star Land Stewards program, Texas A&M University Rangeland Ecology and Management school , the Fayette and Texas Soil and Water Conservation Districts , by the federal Natural Resources Conservation Services agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Partners for Wildlife program.