{"id":454273,"date":"2026-10-02T13:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T13:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/454273\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T13:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T13:02:10","slug":"texas-buys-10m-lakefront-ranch-for-new-state-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/454273\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas buys $10M lakefront ranch for new state park"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not uncommon for longtime Texas family ranches to be sold for development, giving way to\u00a0master-planned communities<\/a>, business parks<\/a> or retail centers<\/a>. But after more than 80 years in one family’s hands, this East Texas ranch is headed for a different future\u2014one centered on preserving its natural beauty.<\/p>\n

“It’s a really unique property, which is why Texas Parks and Wildlife was interested in it,” Josh Smith, listing broker with\u00a0TexasLand, told\u00a0Chron on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The property has 2,000 feet of frontage along Lake Palestine and 10 internal lakes and ponds, ranging from a half-acre to roughly seven acres. The land is about 60 percent wooded and 40 percent pasture, according to the listing.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s one of the largest contiguous parcels available on Lake Palestine,” Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The previous owners ran a pecan orchard operation on site. The family ran the business, known as the Texas Pecan Nursery, for many generations. Aside from the small area used for the business operations, most of the land remains untouched.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of family members\u2026that are involved in the ownership of the piece of land so it was just kind of time naturally. It was just a natural time to sell,” Smith said. “They’ll be able to come out and\u2026still come to the land and\u2026it’s going to be preserved.”<\/p>\n

The opportunity to sell to Texas Parks and Wildlife came about unexpectedly. Smith said the agency’s interest was partly driven by a push to expand its presence in other parts of Texas.<\/p>\n

“I think they were kind of a Hill Country<\/a> focus as far as some of their acquisitions on state parks and there were some people who wanted to see them kind of look at some different regions,” Smith said. “I think there were some vocal state representatives\u2026saying, hey, why don’t y’all look at East Texas?”<\/p>\n

The sale seemed like a perfect fit because the property already felt like a state park, Smith said.<\/p>\n

“Texas Parks and Wildlife, when they came out and looked at it, they were just\u2026blown away. They really loved it,” he said. “There’s a lot of really big old growth pines on it and\u2026when you go into the property and you get kind of back in there it just feels\u2026like a state park.”<\/p>\n

While it could take years before the agency opens the property to visitors as it completes planning and habitat restoration, Smith said both the family and Texas Parks and Wildlife were happy with the outcome. The final sale price was not disclosed.<\/p>\n

“I think they’re really happy that it’s going to be preserved forever,” Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s not uncommon for longtime Texas family ranches to be sold for development, giving way to\u00a0master-planned communities, business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1836,1704,85744,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-454273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chronnews","tag-chronstaff","tag-chrontexas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}