Kallison Ranch

A Little History of Kallison Ranch.

Nathan Kallison came to this country from Russia in 1891, first to Chicago where he was apprenticed to a leathermaker and learned to craft saddles and harnesses, says his grandson Jack, author of a forthcoming family history, "He Soared with Eagles," to be published later this summer. Nathan met his wife, Anna, when both were about 20. For her health, the young Kallisons decided to leave the severe Chicago winters behind in favor of a move South, according to Hollace Ann Winter and Kenneth Roseman in "Lone Stars of David" (2007, Texas Jewish Historical Society).

Arriving in 1899 in San Antonio, "with a few worldly goods and a limited capital of $300," says an anniversary story in the San Antonio Light, Nov. 1, 1959, young Nathan rented a 20-by-20-foot space at 124 S. Flores St. There, he opened a saddle and leather-goods shop "and started making friends as fast as possible with farmers and ranchers," says his grandson.

The young merchant expanded his wares when "automobile trade demanded its conversion into a mercantile establishment," says Nathan's obituary in the San Antonio Express, Dec. 5, 1944. The location eventually grew into the blocklong Kallison's superstore, selling farm and ranch equipment, Western wear and a variety of other goods for decades at the edge of Main Plaza.

All four of the Kallison children — Perry, Morris, Pauline and Berdie — helped out in the store, along with as many as 125 employees. As a successful merchant, Nathan expanded his interests to include real estate. In 1910, he purchased part of the former Hoffman Ranch off Culebra Road, then about 20 miles northwest of the city.

The elder Kallison, succeeded by his son Perry, saw the ranch as a "laboratory for better farm and ranch methods," says a story in the Express, Feb. 16, 1950. The Kallisons tested the newest of machinery, seed, insecticide and other products, while searching for the perfect combination of native and introduced grasses that would "produce a maximum amount of beef per acre."

The spread grew to more than 3,000 acres, about half in cultivation — including Bexar County's first wheat fields, planted around 1925 — and half given over to grazing. The Kallison Ranch bred polled Herefords, described by Weiner and Roseman as "fast-growing, beefy crossbreeds (that) did not have horns" and frequently were judged champions at the San Antonio Stock Show.

To the family, however, it was more than just a high-efficiency, experimental agriculture station. "We went out to the ranch every Sunday," says Jack Kallison, speaking of the children and grandchildren of Nathan and Anna Kallison. "It was sort of a ritual."

During World War II, the Kallisons "asked the USO to send busloads of troops out there," Jack says. "We'd give them a tour, and they'd look over the cattle, ride horseback, have lunch and spend all afternoon. Then we'd gather outside the ranch and sing 'Deep in the Heart of Texas.' "

Meanwhile, Nathan's son Morris had entered the family real-estate business, Kallison Properties, building or buying more than 200 downtown buildings in his lifetime. Morris, a partner with his siblings in Kallison Enterprises, told the Express in 1963 that "he had given up hunting, fishing and horseback riding in favor of acquiring, designing and renovating buildings."

A few years after Morris died in 1966, his brother Perry became ill, says Jack, "and we stopped the weekend trips." An advertisement in the daily newspapers during the summer of 1969 offers to rent the ranch house, with its three bedrooms, two baths, "immense screened porch, pasture and one horse."

After the deaths of Nathan's children, inheritance of the downtown properties and the ranch was divided among the grandchildren. In July of 2002, with funding from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the City of San Antonio, the Trust for Public Land acquired 1,160 acres of the former Kallison Ranch as an addition to the Government Canyon State Natural Area.

Another part of the ranch was sold to a developer; there is now a 521-acre subdivision named Kallison Ranch.

"Today it's kind of sad for all of our cousins about the ranch," Jack says. "All of us wish we had it back."

Kallison family members currently live in San Antonio, Austin and Houston, as well as in Baltimore and Virginia. In Washington, D.C., Jack's cousin Nick Kotz, author of several books of historical nonfiction, also is at work on a book about the family.

Paula Allen

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