Essays
Moseying: Exploring the Natural World
Will the Mallet Ranch become an Outdoor Education center?
December 26, 2007
Imagine students visiting the Mallet Ranch for a week, learning about the ecology of the high plains, and the lifestyles of early day Llanero ranchers, Indians, and Ciboleros. The Mallet Ranch is legendary – partly because of its oil wealth, and partly for its “mysterious cachet” that is the result of the fact that its ownership rarely participated in the community life of Hockley County. The headquarters was one of the first buildings in the county. Few people, other than oil field workers ever have seen its 50,000+ acres of land.
The Mallet Ranch is in Hockley County, thirty miles west of Lubbock. In 1895 David DeVitt and John Scharbauer bought the ranch and in 1897 DeVitt became the sole owner, and formed a corporation with a board of directors. DeVitt died in 1934. DeVitt’s daughter Christine struggled with the board of directors to not sell the ranch and eventually convinced them. In 1937 she became a member of the board and in 1940 became its vice-president. By 1941 over 100 oil wells on the ranch became producers. The ranch is smack dab in the center of the Slaughter Oil Field, the second largest oil field in Texas.
Christine fought to preserve the ranch as her father had left it. She visited many times over the next forty years. She and her sister gave over a million dollars to the Museum and Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech. The main building of the Ranching Heritage Center is designed along the lines of the old Mallet Headquarters, and the west wing of the Museum is named after her mother and father. She also was a significant donor to Lubbock Christian University and the South Plains College in Levelland and to the Methodist Hospital in Lubbock. In 1969 she obtained the charter for the CH Foundation. In 1984 her sister Helen activated the foundation after Christine died in October, 1983. Helen also created the Helen Jones Foundation, and since then the two foundations have been significant contributors to non-profits, schools, and other civic projects in Lubbock and beyond.
In 2002 Christena Stephens, then a graduate student at Texas Tech, was one of the co-founders of the Sundown Historical Preservation Society. Its main mission was to preserve the Mallet Ranch Headquarters. Her graduate studies took her to the Welder Wildlife Foundation in South Texas for the next two years where she served as an wildlife conservation educator. When she returned in 2005, the CH Foundation gave her grant money to study the feasibility of saving the Mallet Headquarters buildings through a relocation plan. As she worked on the feasibility study, she realized that another option for the preservation of the Mallet buildings was to leave the building in situ and create an outdoor education center where students could be physically immersed in learning about the region’s cultural and natural resources. In 2007 she submitted a Texas Historical Commission grant for $60,000 to assist with the stabilization of the structures. However, because permission for release was never signed by the CH Foundation, the grant had to be declined.
Ms. Stephens has received significant encouragement and support from many people and institutions. The graduate level Master Design Studio at the School of Architecture at Texas Tech designed five versions of how to develop the outdoor center. Dr. Paul Carlson, the director of the Texas Tech Center for the Southwest, Dr. David Murrah, author of the book “Oil, Taxes, and Cats” about the Mallet Ranch, and Dr. Frederick Rathjen, emeritus professor of West Texas A&M University served as a sounding board for developing the focus of the project. Resolutions of support have been received from the city councils, commissioners’ courts, and historical commissions of Hockley, Yoakum and Cochran County. Region 17 Education Service Center, the area Independent School Districts, South Plains College, Texas Tech and Girlstown USA have given letters of support. Ginny Phillips, owner of Commercial Printing in Levelland, printed a book about the proposal.
The Mallet Ranch is in the center of the Llano Estacado. Students from Midland and Odessa are only two hours from the site. Students from Amarillo are three hours away and Lubbock students only forty-five minutes. The Llano Estacado does not have a “residential” outdoor education center. Many regions in the United States, including Texas, do have comparable centers. MO ranch (near Kerrville) is one program that a number of Midlanders are familiar with, and focuses on the Hill Country. The Welder Wildlife Foundation (near Sinton, on the Texas Gulf Coast), mentioned above, has been in business since 1953. The Lower Colorado River Authority has six such locations.
In the September 24th, 2007 edition of the Daily Toreador (the Texas Tech newspaper) Dr. Paul Carlson was quoted as saying the CH and Helen Jones Foundations “are spending money in all kinds of ways except for preserving the ranch.” In an email to me when I asked for his perspective on the project, Dr. Carlson stated that “Christena Stephens’ project has great merit. The foundation folks have been surprised by the high quality of work Christena put into the effort. Leaders of the various (regional) foundations need to communicate with the CH Foundation directors or not much will move forward. Getting acceptance from the CH Foundation is the key. And, to get that acceptance is support from groups like the Sibley Nature Center.”
I learned of the project from Dr. Nathan Tubb, a retired vice-president of South Plains College and father of Dr. Terry Tubb of Midland, when I interviewed him in Levelland about the history of the region. He sent me to Ginny Phillips and I bought the book she had published for Ms. Stephens. Her enthusiasm about the project was exhilarating, but it was not until December 17th before I could meet Ms. Stephens due to our conflicting schedules. Ms. Stephens showed me parts of the ranch from county roads and we joined Ms. Phillips for lunch. The southwest corner of the Mallet Ranch abuts the Fitzgerald Ranch, recently purchased by the Texas Nature Conservancy for preservation of the Lesser Prairie Chicken. Afterwards, Ms. Stephens showed me a collection of photographs of the ranch structures and its wildlife that she and Ms. Phillips have amassed during many field trips to the site.
It is my hope that the boards of the foundations based in Midland and Odessa will learn of the project through this column (if they are not already aware of the project) and after investigating, decide to support the project. I also hope that our institutions of higher education, as well as the local school districts, will also decide to send letters of support to Ms. Stephens to present to the CH foundation. If anyone would like to examine the Sibley Nature Center’s copy of Ms. Stephen’s book, please call me at 684-6827.
The Sibley Nature Center has started a propagation project of xeriscape plants not sold in local nurseries. If you have any plastic pots of any size, please donate them to us – bring them to 1307 E. Wadley Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.