History

Robert Real was the first settler to own the Mo-Ranch land in the Texas Hill Country west of San Antonio. He was nephew of Capt. Charles Schreiner (Kerrville, Tex.) and foreman of the Schreiner Ranch, and made a deliberate effort to purchase tracts of land along the north fork of the Guadalupe River.

W.W. Wilson bought the land from Real in 1924.

Houston oilman O.R. Seagraves bought the property in 1928 and built the manor house in 1929. He lost his fortune in the Stock Market crash and the property reverted to Wilson.

In 1935, Dan Moran, president of Continental Oil Co. (Conoco) bought the ranch and developed most of the buildings seen today, using native limestone and cypress, junked oilfield pipe, and lodgepole pine. He died in 1948 and the property was bought in 1949 by the four-state Presbyterian Synod of the Sun as a retreat center. The State of Texas bought 6,500 acres from Mo-Ranch to create the Kerr Wildlife Management Area. The current area of the ranch is about 500 acres.