A well-known 760-acre ranch near Johnson City — a historic town in the Texas Hill Country — has returned to the market, potentially making it one of the most exciting real estate listings in recent memory.
Baird Ranch, a private retreat belonging to the family behind the iconic Mrs. Baird’s Bread, is once again up for grabs, this time with a listing price of $10.995 million — the lowest in the property’s history, according to its listing agents at West & Swope Ranches.
Located along Miller Creek, not far from Hill Country hotspots like Dripping Springs and from San Antonio and Austin, the ranch has been in the Baird family since 1951. For more than 75 years, they have stewarded the ranch, which boasts a working cattle operation, multiple residences, barns and other buildings with functional utilities.
Roughly 3,900 feet of water from Miller Creek flows through the ranch.
“Its combination of live water, established improvements, and conservation-minded stewardship makes it one of the most compelling large-acreage offerings currently available near Austin,” a news release for the property states. The ranch also has a mixture of whitetail deer, turkey, dove and quail.
The Mrs. Baird’s brand began in 1908, in Fort Worth, Texas, when Ninia “Ninnie” Baird, a long-time baker and wife to successful restaurateur William Baird, stepped up to help support her family when William’s health began to fail. According to the company’s website, Ninnie’s breads, cakes and pies had always been in “high-demand.”
By 1928, it was one of the largest baking facilities in Texas, surviving even during the Great Depression and World War II before hitting a “post-war boom” in the 1950s and 60s.
Though it’s since been bought out by the Mexican multinational corporation Grupo Industrial Bimbo, at the time of its 1998 acquisition, the Mrs. Baird’s Bakeries brand was the largest family-owned bakery in the United States, according to the Texas State Historical Association.
The family previously listed the property for sale with another real estate firm in 2024, according to past MySA reporting, with a listing price of $12.9 million at the time.