Chapman Ranches

The Chapman family – P.A. and Roxana Chapman and their children and grandchildren – are well known for their role in the oil and gas industry and as prominent philanthropists in Oklahoma and Texas. Less known is their significance as innovative agriculturalists in both states. John Chapman operated the family’s Chapman Ranch, established in 1919 in Nueces County, Texas. Across over 34,000 acres, its founders laid out a centralized operation with a company town and gridiron pattern of uniform tenant farmsteads. Chapman Ranch operations ended by the mid-twentieth century and only a few original buildings are still extant, including the company headquarters, two schools, a cotton gin, and several tenant farmhouses.

At the same time, John’s brother Fred Chapman and other family members purchased 20,000 acres in south-central Oklahoma, including what became known as Chapman Farms or Washita Farms near Tishomingo. Washita Farms followed a very similar development pattern, with a central store and headquarters, schools, crop storage and processing facilities, and numerous identical tenant farmsteads. Early corporate farms like the Chapman enterprises played a vital role in the region’s agricultural, economic, labor, and social history.

A recent roadway widening project was proposed to pass through the Chapman Ranch area. The Texas Department of Transportation needed to determine whether the current landscape still conveyed this important story, facing the challenges of identifying an appropriate scale for evaluation and assessing the significance and integrity of vast historic agricultural landscapes that are far more than what meets the eye.