Morris Ranch

Francis Morris, a New York broker, formed the Morris Ranch in southwestern Gillespie and northeastern Kerr counties when he purchased 23,000 acres in the area. He passed away two years later in 1886 and the land passed to his son John A. Morris, who turned the Ranch into one of the country’s leading centers for breeding, raising, and training racehorses. The ranch quickly became a self-contained community, with its own hotel, cotton gin, mill, school church, and post office.

John A. Morris kept about 200 mares and ten stallions at the ranch, and his cousin and manager Charles Morris, usually sent thirty yearling colts to his stables in Winchester Park, Maryland each year and sold the remaining 170. By 1895, future Kentucky Derby winner Max Hirsch was one of the jockeys who lived and worked at the ranch.

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