The lands of Santa María Ranch date back to the Spanish vice-regal grants of the mid-1750s. Our maternal and paternal ancestors came to this side of the Río Grande from Guerrero Viejo,Tamaulipas.

In nearby San Ygnacio you can admire the simple, stately and enduring beauty of the last vestiges of Spanish colonial architecture –including the Treviño Uribe fort built by our great-great-great-great grandfather Jesus Treviño. The home of his grandson, our great-grandfather Manuel Benavides Treviño, was built in 1881 and sits counter corner to the Plaza Blas María Uribe. Nuestra Señora del Refugio Church, which was built in 1895, is constructed, like the rest of San Ygnacio’s architectural treasures, of quarried sandstone.

Our grandmother María Dionicia Benavides Treviño de Gutierrez grew up in the home her father built, and as children we were blessed to spend time with her in a house that was the portal to our family history.

We were lucky, too, to have spent time with her on this storied ranch, fortunate to have so formidable and inspiring a figure in our lives. She had been widowed in 1926 and managed yet to raise seven children and hold onto this and other ranches during the Great Depression. 

She was a stoic, a stern matriarch who showed us her humanity with acts of kindness, prayer, and a mirthful giggle when something very funny moved her. When the last of her sons died, this land came to our mother in the late 1980s; and after our parents, José and Amanda Guerra, died in 2004 and 2005, respectively, the management of this beautiful wild land came to this generation.