The Ranch, as described in the 1940 WPA Guide to Texas

"US 90, rounding the northeast shoulder of the Baylor Range, heads north up the broad arid valley that lies between the frowning rampart of the Sierra Diablo (6,513 alt.) on the west and the Delaware Mountains (5,870 alt.) on the east, traversing one of the most desolate yet weirdly beautiful stretches of country to be found in Texas. The view sweeps almost level reaches, gray-green with sage and greasewood, dotted here and there with prickly pear, yucca, and ocotillo. Beyond the middle distance a streak of blazing white gleams (R) like a hazy silver ribbon. It is the crystal-encrusted shoreline of a salt lake. On the horizon the ragged crest of the Delawares looms stark against the sky. Closer at hand, the sheer wall of the Sierra Diablo rises (L). Somewhere in the tangle of ridges and deep narrow canyons of this range are mines, lost and active. Gleaming white salt lakes appear. Far ahead lifts the blunt nose of the Guadalupe Range where it shoes its triangle of lofty peaks across the State Line from New Mexico. Higher and bolder loom the broad cliffs."