Leo Ranch Conservation Easement
Southwestern Cooke County, Texas
The conservation easement area on the Leo Ranch property is an irregularly shaped, 963.17-acre
parcel in southwestern Cooke County, Texas, just north of the Denton and Wise County lines.
The northern boundary of the Property includes the stream corridor of southeast-trending Clear
Creek. The Conservation Easement area excludes the two Josey family homesites on the ranch,
the small Leo Ranch office building and several small parcels of land which may be used for the
construction of an educational conference center in the future. The Conservation Easement area
does include three building envelopes within the boundaries for the existing guest house at the
north end of the Property, for farm buildings south of the Leo Ranch Office outparcel, and a
building envelope for a large metal storage barn on the west boundary of the Property.
Ecological Description:
The Leo Ranch property has characteristics of three primary ecotomes, resulting in a large
diversity of plant communities within the easement boundaries. It is ecologically situated at the
boundary of the Grand Prairie (Ecoregion 29d) and the sloping woodlands of the Western Cross
Timbers (Ecoregion 29c). The nearly level meadow area on the northern portion of the Property
is characteristic of bottomland tallgrass floodplain and riparian ecosystems in North Texas.
There are five general types of habitat on the Property: (1) grasslands (upper prairie and lower
meadows); (2) savannahs (hardwood tree and shrub mottes and isolated trees in grasslands; (3)
woodlands on steep limestone to sandstone slopes (4) aquatic ponds and wetland marshes (i.e.,
ten stock ponds and shallow wetland swales) (5) Streams (natural wooded drainageways, and
Clear Creek riparian corridor). All of the habitats are somewhat impacted by human activity and
livestock grazing. The grasslands, woodlands, savannahs and aquatic habitats are relatively
natural except for the ten man-made ponded impoundments.
The Property is located within the Cooke County Grasslands Conservation Area; an area
delineated by the Texas Nature Conservancy as having significant conservation concerns.
According to their descriptions, the conservation area is thought to support some of the largest
remaining examples of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) -big bluestem (Andropogon
gerardii) -yellow indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) -prairie bishop (Biflora americana) prairie
types. In addition to the prairie occurrences, post oak-blackjack oak-little bluestem woodlands
occur on the sandstone country to the west, and chinquapin oak-bur oak slope forests occur on
the step limestone topography in the central and eastern portions of the conservation area.
Although a substantial portion of the conservation area is in a state of grazing disclimax, it may
be feasible to restore many of these lands through judicious grazing and the reintroduction of
fire.
Topography on the Property is varied; ranging between a high point of approximately 950 feet
above mean sea level (msl) on the hilltop in the southwestern corner of the Property, to
approximately 740 feet within the stream channel of Clear Creek. The southern half of the
Property lies on a limestone ridge or upland with very gentle convex slopes. Steeper slopes are
present on that ridge's north face, which is cut by three ravines or shallow canyons. These
canyons empty out onto the broad floodplain of Clear Creek, a small but perennial tributary of
Elm Fork of the Trinity River. The floodplain is nearly a mile wide in some places and occupies
almost half the ranch. Clear Creek itself is somewhat entrenched in its passage through the
ranch, with its sandy-gravelly bed lying five to ten feet below the level of adjacent terraces.
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Purposes of the Conservation Easement:
 Protect the Property’s ecological and open-space values;
 Protect the Property's agricultural productive capacity and assure its continuing availability
for agricultural use;
 Protect the Property’s relatively high quality habitat for native plants and animals; and
 Maintain and enhance the natural features of the Property.
Critical Elements of the Conservation Easement:
 Property will be perpetually preserved in its predominately agricultural and open space
condition including the Property’s predominantly grassland and sloped woodland habitats;
 Industrial and commercial activities are prohibited on the Property (except those commercial
activities associated with accepted agricultural activities); and
 Continuation of compatible land uses (especially agricultural operations) upon the Property
as they have been historically conducted in harmony with the Property’s ecological and
open-space values.
While not a Purpose of this Conservation Easement or specifically designated as a “scenic vista”
by Cooke County, the views of wooded ramparts across Leo Ranch from both the upper pastures
and lower meadows, and the landscape views of the Clear Creek corridor from Leo Ranch
illustrate unique or relatively natural landscape features characteristic of north central Texas.
Historic Land Uses:
Mr. Josey and his wife Betty Smith Josey conveyed the Property to the Estate of Roger M. Dixon
in 2005 by Special Warranty Deed, which subsequently conveyed the Property to the Dixon
Water Foundation. Historically, the Property has been in agricultural grazing use. The pastures
and meadows have not been tilled, but the L-shaped area of fields near the southwestern portion
of the Property show evidence of terracing. The land continues to be used as pasture and
rangeland for cattle and sheep. Ranching operations at Leo Ranch are organically certified.
Threats:
Many ranch holdings in this rural portion of Texas are currently in the thousands of acres, but
there is a trend toward fragmentation and ranchette development of these large farm and ranch
tracts. Subdivision of larger tracts and development comprise the primary threats to open space
lands in this area.
Properties in the area of Leo Ranch have energy-related development due to the underlying
Barnett Shale natural gas trend, often resulting in a spacing of one well per 20 acres for gas field
development. No gas well drilling has been proposed for the Leo Ranch property, but the
infrastructure of connector lines and transmission lines for existing wells to the southwest could
require additional linear disturbance corridors across the Leo Ranch in the future.
Wind farms have not yet been observed in the vicinity of Leo Ranch, but wind power generation
is a viable energy production source to the north. The town of Muenster, Texas has experienced
a number of wind turbine installations on the higher ridges in the Wolf Ridge Wind Farm north
of town. These wind farms require both pad site disturbances and an infrastructure of power
stations and transmission lines. It is feasible that additional power lines could be proposed by
transmission companies that could cross the Leo Ranch tract in the future.
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