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For the last 36 years, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture website, the Family Land Heritage Program has been honoring farms and ranches that have been in continuous agricultural operation by the same family for 100 years or more. As of 2008, a total of 39 Llano County ranches had been among the honorees, starting in 1974 with the Leifeste Ranch (founded in 1852, on the west side of Llano County) and the M.L. Hunnicut Ranch (founded in 1872, on the east side of the county).

The others, in order of age, are: Schneider’s Ranch (1855), Grenwelge Ranch (1857), Inks Ranch (1857), Oestreich Ranch (1860), Jim Moore Ranch (1862), Flint Ranch (1874), Walker Ranch (1874), Evers Ranch (1875), Birk Ranch (1876), Birk-Sommerfeld Heritage Ranch (1876), Honig Homeplace (1877), Bar-C Ranch (1878), Moss & Miles Ranch (1878), Hartman Ranch (1880), another Oestreich Ranch (1880), Gregory Ranch (1881), Heinrich Holtzer Ranch (1881), Gregory O’Rorke Ranch (1881), S Bar Swenson Ranch (1881), W.R. Tow Ranch (1881), Dutch Mountain Ranch (1882), Buie Ranch (1883), Grandfather’s Crossing (1883), Little Co. Ranch, Inc. (1883), Allen Ranch (1884), The Eden-Kassel Ranch (1884), The Kassel Ranch (1884), Keese Ranch (1884), Old Tate Homeplace (1884), Patrick Place (1886), Overstreet Ranch (1887), Stewart Ranch I (1888), Stewart Ranch II (1888), Sawyer Hereford Ranch (1889), Coursey Ranch (1891), Ligon Ranch (1898), and Slator Granite Cliff Ranch (1903).

It’s interesting to see that more than half of the “century” ranches were founded in the 1880s, the decade after the Comanches ceased to be a threat in Llano County, and the decade before Llano’s mineral boom. Most of the land was filled up during that decade, and ranching dominated the county’s economy.

One ranch that didn’t quite make this list, despite its undeniable Llano County connections, is the Black Valley Ranch, founded in 1896 by William Henry “Bill” and Martha Odessa Wren Holloway, who settled in the northeast corner of Mason County. The Holloways had come to Texas from Tennesee; they purchased 320 acres in “Black Valley” (near the San Saba and Llano County lines) from a man named Leonard Stockwell, and built a fine, two-story home there. A few years later, they added 1,196 more acres to the ranch. The couple raised thirteen children there (a fourteenth died as an infant in 1909); Bill Holloway helped build a one-room school just across the fence from his property, and served as a board member of what became known as Black Valley School. Several of his children were educated there.

The closest town was Pontotoc, already past its peak by 1896. A typhoid epidemic in 1887 had decimated the population and filled the town’s cemetery. The San Fernando Academy, which had drawn dozens of families and as many as 200 students to Pontotoc during the early 1880s, had closed in 1890. A plan to form a new county with Pontotoc as its seat, had been blocked by citizens of Mason, and efforts to attract a railroad had failed. While Pontotoc still had an active economy, with several stores and businesses in 1896, it was already in decline.

Mason was the closest “big” town, as well as being county seat, so it’s likely that the Holloways had some business connections in Mason; but Llano was just a little bit farther, and it was in the middle of a tremendous growth period. Although the euphoria of the mineral boom had already passed, the new railroad and Llano River bridge had made Llano the commercial center for residents of several counties (including Mason) to the west. There is little doubt that Bill Holloway was very familiar with Llano.

The Holloway family grew and prospered; eight sons helped Bill and Martha spread the family name. When Bill died (at the age of 60) in 1920, Martha continued to operate the ranch. After her death in 1936 (at age 80), the ranch was divided equally among the 13 children. Lillie, May and Bert worked together for a while, raising cattle, goats, hogs, peanuts, cotton, and castor beans on their combined 311 acres before Bert eventually bought the shares of his sisters. He and his wife, Katie Durst Holloway, had four children: Lonnie, Odessa (Dannheim), Albert and Beulah (McLeod). As an indication of the family’s prominence in the area, at least 35 of the slightly more than 200 graves (dating from 1891 to 2009) in the Union Band Cemetery (just across the line in San Saba County) belong to Holloways (six other graves are unidentified).

Bill Holloway’s grandson, Lonnie, was born April 20, 1921, and married Wanda Chew on June 2, 1944. They built a new three-bedroom house on the property; their two children, Ronnie and Cathy, were born and spent their early years there. Several years of severe drought in the 1950s made life difficult on the ranch, and finally in 1957, Lonnie and Wanda moved into Llano, where Lonnie took a job with Foremost Dairies.

They never lost their love for the land, and after Lonnie’s parents both died in 1965, Lonnie purchased the shares of his brother and two sisters. The old house burned down, but Lonnie, Wanda, Ronnie and Cathy spent many long hours restoring and running the family ranch. They cleared the land and put in coastal hay; Ronnie built a hunting cabin near the old homesite during the 1970s. The Holloways also leased some neighboring property for their cattle.

Lonnie took a new job with Waldrope-Hatfield-Hawthorne Funeral Home in the late 1970s, and worked there until he “retired” in 1987. He kept busy ranching, and was very active in the community, helping regularly with the Crawfish Open and the Old Time Fiddlers Fest. In 1997, Governor Rick Perry presented Lonnie and Wanda with a Certificate of Honor recognizing their property as a Family Land Heritage century ranch. It was an honor that gave Lonnie great satisfaction.

In the meantime, Ronnie had married and started a successful career in the funeral home business, eventually buying an interest in the Heritage Funeral Homes in Brady and Menard. He and his wife, Kay, have one son (Randy, who works with his father) and one granddaughter (Cassie). Ronnie and Kay live in Brady, but spend quite a bit of time on the old ranch, and have recently built a new home there.

Lonnie Holloway passed away in 2009, after nearly 65 years of marriage; Wanda still runs the ranch, raising cattle and coastal grass, but with more and more help from Ronnie, who has a bulldozer there, and spends quite a bit of time “pushing mesquite.” The ranch still serves as “home base” for the Holloway family, and each member values the unique, 114-year history of the Black Valley Ranch.