Albert & Bessie Kronkosky State Natural Area

Kronkosky State Natural Area protects springs, Hill Country habitat, and rare species, but the developing property is not yet open for public visits.

What makes this property unusual is not its size. It is that the land was never ranched. Superintendent James Rice told Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine: "This place was never ranched, so those impacts are not present. That leaves us with a slice of the Texas Hill Country that is rare and rapidly disappearing." Across most of the region, generations of grazing by cattle, sheep, and goats reshaped the grass, the browse, and the way water moves across the ground. This tract skipped that.

There is also a deer mystery. Rice says a whitetail herd lived on the property until about 1995 or 1996, and then the population crashed for reasons nobody has explained. The result is seedling Texas madrone, red oak, and big-tooth maple coming up by the hundreds — young trees that get browsed off elsewhere in the Hill Country before they clear knee height.

Albert Kronkosky Jr. was born in Boerne in 1908. He and his wife Bessie began buying this land in 1946 and continued until 1973. They had no children. Albert died in 1995; Bessie died on September 1, 2010 at the age of 103. Texas Parks and Wildlife accepted the donated property six months later, in March 2011. Neither of them lived to see a public trail on it.

Albert and Bessie Kronkosky donated this 3,852-acre property to Texas Parks and Wildlife in 2011. Its springs, seasonal seeps, oak-juniper woodland, and rugged limestone terrain support rare and endangered Hill Country species. TPWD is developing the site as a state natural area, with future plans for camping, backpacking, hiking, and limited mountain biking.