Katy Lifestyles and Homes magazine Aug 2009: Katy History and Historical Events and Information in Katy, Cinco Ranch Company

he site of an expansive working ranch from 1947-1983, Cinco Ranch is currently owned by Newland Communities.

Cinco Ranch lies in portions of several original land grants including the Thomas Hobermaker, E.M. McGinnis, Morris and Cummings, and the Henry Looney surveys. The Thomas Hober-maker Survey was granted as a first class headright in the 1830s.

First class headrights were given to the earliest settlers of Texas and to colonists living in Texas prior to the Texas Revolution. Heads of families were entitled to a league and a labor of land, a total of 4,605 acres. Single men were entitled to a labor of land, 1,280 acres.

Thomas Hobermaker traveled to Texas prior to the Texas revolution to settle on this land. Henry Looney was given a third class headright as a settler who came to Texas after the Texas Revolution and prior to October 1837. His family received 320 acres patented on April 4, 1839. This included the property where the Cinco Ranch clubhouse and original information center now sit.

In 1897, E.M. McGinnis acquired property that was originally owned by a man named Mr. Symes who purchased the land from the State of Texas around 1876.

Bassett Blakley, a prominent Texas rancher and businessman, was known to have purchased several thousand acres of land in West Houston during the early 1900s. Blakely also purchased the Henry Looney survey, and it become part of his ranch. The Hobermaker survey was purchased by Blakely in 1918.

The Cinco Ranch Families

In the mid 1930s, five prominent Houston businessmen joined together to form the Cinco Ranch Company. William “Fishback” Wheless bought 4,000 acres of the Bassett Blakely ranch in 1937. At the time, Blakely was one of the largest cattle ranchers in Texas. Wheless then encouraged four close friends —J.S. Abercrombie, W.B. Pyron, H.G Nelms and L.M. Jose—to become partners in the working ranch. William Wheless and Walter B. Pyron both worked for the Gulf Oil Company where

Pyron was vice president. J.S. Abercrombie was president of the J.S. Abercrombie Company and Cameron Iron Works. L.M. Jose was president of the Circle W Oil Corporation, Pine Lodge Oil Company and vice president of Windsor Oil. The five notable oil families created Cinco Ranch; cinco is the Spanish word for five.

In addition to being a working ranch, all of the families used the property as a holiday and weekend retreat. They built and shared a huge clubhouse that had an expansive living room with a fireplace that separated two wings of bedrooms. With Buffalo Bayou meandering through the center of the property, the ranch was the ideal spot for the five families to enjoy duck, deer, quail, dove and goose hunting.

With the passage of time, the title to the original ranch passed to Cinco Ltd.-Cinco Ranch Ventures, formed by American General, Homecraft Homes and an entity of the Mischer Corporation. The group purchased the 5,416 acre Cinco Ranch in 1984 in what became the largest raw land transaction in the history of Houston. The Cinco Ranch development was born and the first new “settlers” began moving into the neighborhood in 1991.

Katy ISD opened its first school in Cinco Ranch—Edna Mae Fielder Elementary, located on Greenway Village Drive—in 1993 to serve the 800 families then living in the area. This fall, Katy ISD will open the doors to Stanley Elementary, its 15th campus serving the Cinco Ranch area. The number of families living in Cinco Ranch today is 9,715.