Cool
Clear
Water
La Escalera Ranch
Fort Stockton, Texas
SUMMER 2014
Team Explores Old
Wells On the Ranch
La Escalera Ranch
Fort Stockton, Texas
SUMMER 2014
Crew Pulls Pipe
From Old Wells For
A Subterranean View
La Escalera Ranch
Fort Stockton, Texas
SUMMER 2014
Video Camera Is
Lowered Into An
Abandoned Well
La Escalera Ranch
Fort Stockton, Texas
SUMMER 2014
What's down there?
It's not a fossil fuel
La Escalera Ranch
Fort Stockton, Texas
SUMMER 2014
What's down there?
Glen McCorkle:
"It won't bite ya."
La Escalera Ranch
Fort Stockton, Texas
SUMMER 2014
LA ESCALERA
A legacy of Texas cattlemen whose ranching roots extend to the open range days of the cattle industry.
La Escalera Ranch is one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas, consisting of more than 220,000 deeded acres in Pecos and Brewster counties.
The ranch is located approximately twenty miles south of Fort Stockton, Texas — where a military fort was founded in 1859 near Comanche Springs, a favorite rest stop on the Comanche Trail, the Old San Antonio Road and the Butterfield Overland Mail stage route. The fort was established to protect travelers and settlers from Comanche and Apache Indians. The desolation of the area also attracted many cattle rustlers and horse thieves.
While the Lyda family own and operate La Escalera Ranch today, it was previously owned by the Elsinore Cattle Company of Elsinore, California. In 1992, Gerald Lyda, a San Antonio building contractor, exchanged The Ladder Ranch in southeastern New Mexico for the Elsinore-owned EL Ranch.
Lyda’s son, Gene Lyda, took the management reins and oversees the ranch’s cattle operations. His wife Shay is the Division Office Manager.
K. G. Granberg and his wife, Jo (Lyda) Granberg, manage the Seymour Division, while Gerald D. Lyda manages the San Antonio Business Office. The Fort Stockton Division farm and feedlot is managed by Glen McCorkle, who also serves as the ranch foreman.
La Escalera Ranch is known for its reputation herd of black Angus commercial cattle. The Lyda family continues to invest in new water distribution systems, brush control programs, irrigated farm land, and the installation of a new feedlot on the ranch, as well as efficient and humane pens and cattle handling equipment.