Years and years ago, we would turn in to Freeman Ranch off of RR12 and after a few miles and cattle guards, end up at Little Arkansas on the Blanco. I know there was another route through Wimberley but I always enjoyed the "back way" coming from the San Marcos side.

I heard/read that due to family squabbles a lawyer from Houston ended up with it and cut off public access. I have read that the road was a private right of way and I have heard it was a county road and should not have been allowed to do this…

Information online is honestly sparse and contradictory.

So…any Ags in the vicinity able to shed some light on what is true, what is rumor and the current/future status of Little Arkansas?

We used to camp there all the time in college. I would love to see it again. A beautiful property.

I have had some distant family that lived along the Blanco River close to the "Needmore" ranch.
If memory serves me I think it was like 5500 acres or so along the Blanco. It was owned by a wealthy attorney from Houston named O'Quinn.
I remember it caused quite a stir in the area when the road to what we called Lil Ark swimming hole was closed to the public….
However the road, as I was told, had always been owned by the original landowners and had never really had county maintenance etc. or county road designation. The rumor was that it should have never have been a county road anyway because it only served as access to that one ranch and did not meet the requirements to be considered a county road.
O'Quinn was killed in a car wreck….. if memory serves me correctly around 2009 or so.
Settling the estate within the OQuinn family became a big mess and the ranch was subsequently sold to a rich guy who owned the regional Budweiser distributorship. Can't remember his name.
I know lots of folks back then thought he was gonna split the ranch up and develop it.
My kin in the area has since passed so I have not kept up with it.
I remember going there as a kid but was told lots of the area was destroyed by floods.
It ( Lil Ark) was always on private lands but I don't think the old landowners before the OQuinns cared that people went down there.
Lots of private places like that quit letting the public access it on their land due to the extreme liability risk and getting sued if someone got hurt on your property.
We can thank attorneys and our civil judicial system for that.

Lotsa great memories of camping there as a kid.

We have no justice system.

Only a legal system. A huge difference. Our attorneys, politicians, and justices have all made sure of that.

We don't oractice justice in this country - civil and certainly not criminal. We practice $s. The more ya got, the more it serves you.

I did contract work for Oquinn out there pretty much the entire time he owned it, and a little for the new owners. They were distributors and farmers out of the Valley. Can't remember their names. Gunny is generally correct. O'Quinn made a back room deal and they closed the old road and he built a new one out of pocket basically and gave it to the county. I'll fill in some more when I have a little more time. Beautiful place for sure

My old man was a pothunter and struck some kind of deal with the owner to dig the place up. We spent years there. My old man was like a trailer park Indiana Jones and had some kind of deal going on with the owners son who lived at the campground. There is no way some of the regular long time campers there that we interacted with weren't on some government watch list....either ours or another country's. I always enjoyed the spring that flowed over the cliff to the river. It truly was a gorgeous place. But like everything in the Hill Country, it's gone now or on its way to being another distant memory. I had a lot of good times there as a kid.

Well said.

So many great spots are in the realm of "yesteryear" now.

When my son's were young we would go to Reimer's Ranch, pay at the house and rock climb until we got hot. Then load up and go cool off In Hamilton Pool. No 6 month wait list reservations needed. Those days are gone.

Same with going to E Rock or Ped. Falls and getting in no problem…now, since the area has exploded in population, those days are gone also.

For all I know I may have trespassed on your family spread. Early 90s. A couple of times, in March, I'd park at the Rebecca Creek bridge and walk downstream on the north bank, tossing jigs for white bass. Young and dumb!

Come to think of it, used to do the same at the airport ramp on the Nueces in George West and the Hwy. 16 bridge over the Frio in Tilden. Not owning a boat with the allure of a fish on every cast…

An easy ticket for a GW or worse from a landowner.

We used to never really care as long as folks didn't steal or trash up the place. As the years went by both started happening regularly and the lack of respect and amount of trash and abuse just got worse and worse.
We even would have people cut trees down with chainsaws to make campfires.
The folks changed also. It went from good people wanting to just enjoy the river individually or with their family….. to large groups mainly drinking, using drugs…..leaving trash, beer cans, whiskey bottles etc. everywhere and total lack of respect for the resource and the landowners.
It ruined it for everyone.

Yes sir.

For about 15 years I would regularly go from the Rebecca Creek Crossing bridge by our place upstream past Rust Falls all the way to the set of rapids below the 311 bridge and never see another human. Most of the landowners along the river were kinfolk and didn't care.
It was that way till the mid 70's and it all started changing quickly. A lost time and era.

ETA: It was growing up and living on the Guadalupe through my young years that inspired me to go to TAM and get a degree in WFS.

Wasn't really a back room deal per se, It was actually agreed upon at a commissioners court meeting.

Haven't been to Rust Falls in forever but I metal detect 311 Bridge a couple times a summer. It has never been too lucrative…coins, one 10k ring and a couple of silver rings if I remember correctly.

The owner of Demi John Ranch is/was an Aggie about 25 years ago when I was the Regional Fire Coordinator for the Texas Forest Service. Part of my job was to meet with local landowners about prescribed burns, large brush piles, etc and to offer assistance.

I used to ride my bicycle down Rebecca Creek road to the river and IF I saw A car, it was a busy day. My gosh…I wouldn't even ride my bike on it today.

Isn't that where Gus McCrae was buried?

Used to park at the crossing there and wade fish upstream to the southwest Texas camp. The cross country team used to train on that road in 2000-2002. Was very sad to see it shut down/re-routed. Part of my childhood gone.

Was it LaMantia that bought it under Needmore? Seems like that is right. They are the bud distributor in the Valley for sure and own several places down there.

Here's an old article about John O'Quinn closing the road, and the controversy about it:
https://www.houstonpress.com/news/a-river-ran-through-it-6575255/

I guess the new road he built to swap with the county is Fulton Ranch Road. Looks like the old one is still called CR 213 on Google Maps, and the newer route is about 6 miles long, so I guess that would have cost $5.8 million in 2001.

country said:

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Was it LaMantia that bought it under Needmore? Seems like that is right. They are the bud distributor in the Valley for sure and own several places down there.

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Class of '81.

country said:

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Was it LaMantia that bought it under Needmore? Seems like that is right. They are the bud distributor in the Valley for sure and own several places down there.

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That is correct. Lamantia out of Laredo.

Gunny456 said:

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I have had some distant family that lived along the Blanco River close to the "Needmore" ranch.
If memory serves me I think it was like 5500 acres or so along the Blanco. It was owned by a wealthy attorney from Houston named O'Quinn.
I remember it caused quite a stir in the area when the road to what we called Lil Ark swimming hole was closed to the public….
However the road, as I was told, had always been owned by the original landowners and had never really had county maintenance etc. or county road designation. The rumor was that it should have never have been a county road anyway because it only served as access to that one ranch and did not meet the requirements to be considered a county road.
O'Quinn was killed in a car wreck….. if memory serves me correctly around 2009 or so.
Settling the estate within the OQuinn family became a big mess and the ranch was subsequently sold to a rich guy who owned the regional Budweiser distributorship. Can't remember his name.
I know lots of folks back then thought he was gonna split the ranch up and develop it.
My kin in the area has since passed so I have not kept up with it.
I remember going there as a kid but was told lots of the area was destroyed by floods.
It ( Lil Ark) was always on private lands but I don't think the old landowners before the OQuinns cared that people went down there.
Lots of private places like that quit letting the public access it on their land due to the extreme liability risk and getting sued if someone got hurt on your property.
We can thank attorneys and our civil judicial system for that.

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I'm pretty sure I know the Bud guy that bought it from the OQuinns.....him and his frau are good folks. Did a lot for the S.A.L.E. down at the SA rodeo.
The liability issue also shut down Edge Falls in Kendall Co which used to be accessible with permission from the family that owned the land the falls were on. Turns out they are kinfolks going back for about 12 generations or so.

edit: The guy I know had the San Antonio area Bud distibutorship. It may not have covered the area that far to the north. His dist was called Budco.

Met I think his name was Richard Edge back in 70's. Was a dynamite guy around hill country. That was back when you could stop during a float and enjoy the falls and cliff.

Deerdude said:

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Met I think his name was Richard Edge back in 70's. Was a dynamite guy around hill country. That was back when you could stop during a float and enjoy the falls and cliff.

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That's him. That side and our side of the family both came to Texas from Georgia about the same time in the mid 1800's. They settled in Kendall CO and our side settled in Brazos Co. About 20% of the folks buried in the Reliance Cemetery are kinfolk.

https://www.houstonpress.com/news/a-river-ran-through-it-6575255/

We could do a whole thread about private lands now closed to the public, because the public is filled with idiots who have no respect for the land.

I was planning a trip toward Black Mesa in the Oklahoma Panhandle, and I found that a dinosaur trackway is now closed.

We used to stop at Folsom Falls in northeast Newer Mexico. We found it closed and locals told us someone got hurt out there, and sued the landowner.

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Wasn't really a back room deal per se, It was actually agreed upon at a commissioners court meeting.

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True, but was done without any public input or even awareness.

O'Quinn was definitely a strange one, had a really crappy childhood. Had no kids, but had bronze statues of kids all over his place.

The ranch manager would have me out to bid the work & then have me send an invoice for the completed job prior to starting. When O'Quinn finally would cut the check, only then did I start work. (O'Quinn was terrible at book keeping or just did not give a dang. He might sit on an invoice for 6 months & good luck trying to force him to do anything.)

He drove like a bat out of hell, he actually died when his long-term driver wouldn't haul a$$ in the rain in Houston. O'Quinn tells him to get in the passenger seat & let him drive. He promptly slides off a wet road at high speed into a tree & killed them both. Just terrible.

Apache said:

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He promptly slides off a wet road at high speed into a tree & killed them both. Just terrible.

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I remember that; he wrapped a black suburban around a tree like it was made of clay.

Holy Moly.
I've done wildlife management for some very rich fellows. Some were eccentric like that. Like they are not hitting on all 8 cylinders sometimes.

My gosh…

You are so right about O'Quinn. I was an expert witness in several court cases where he was on the other side. He's questioning me at trial and get get me to budge off what I said in my deposition and trying every way to try and make the jury think I'm changing my answers. The judge gets tired of it and tells him "Mr. O'Quinn quit badgering this witness and move on." His answer; But judge.....I"M JOHN O'QUINN!!!! The judge about had a meltdown. I guess at that point he had FU money so didn't care.

Did he think he was Racehorse Haynes or something? Lol

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I guess at that point he had FU money so didn't care.

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The guy was part of the tobacco law suit, Dow chemical lawsuit (the breast implant thing I think) and also some diet drug FenFen lawsuit. Definitely FU money. When the Olympics were in Athens in '04, he rented a huge yacht for he & his girlfriend for the duration and invited a ton of people to come stay. No one showed & they were on that boat with just crew. (Still pretty cool, but shows you how well liked he was)

He built a ton of stuff all over that place: High fencing, multiple houses, paved roads, tons of brush (cedar) clearing, low water crossings, exotic game such as kudu, buffalo, oryx, blackbuck etc.. He spent a pile of money with my company irrigating the place. His ranch manager started a landscape company on the side to maintain the place to the level he wanted.
His car collection (I never saw it) was apparently legendary.
His contemporaries were guys like "Racehorse" Haynes, Joe Jamail, etc. Outside of Michael Dell, probably the richest dude I ever worked for.