The historic 21,178± Goodrich Ranch is located in the northwest quadrant of Burnet County, Texas at the headwaters of the Texas Highland Lakes along the Colorado River and Lake Buchanan in the Texas Hill Country. Created in 1935 by the Texas Legislature, the Lower Colorado River Authority was charged with harnessing the mighty Colorado River’s frequent flooding and also generating electric power for the residents of Central Texas. Construction began in 1937 on Buchanan Dam and eventually five more dams were built creating the series of seven Texas Highland Lakes. This rustic, natural area is located virtually in the geographic center of Texas.

The Goodrich Ranch is an hour’s drive from the steps of the State Capitol in Austin; a two-hour drive from the Alamo in San Antonio, a three-hour drive from Dallas-Fort Worth’s Arlington Stadium or a four-hour drive from the Astrodome. Convenient lighted jet airport accommodations can be found in Austin, Georgetown and Burnet, only 75 miles, 45 miles and 15 miles from the ranch, respectively. Access to the ranch entrance is only six miles west of US Highway 281, a major north-south corridor between Wichita Falls and the Rio Grande Valley or only thirty-five miles west of Interstate 35, the major north-south corridor between Dallas-Fort Worth and Laredo.

Yet with all the easy access to the major metropolitan centers of Texas, it truly taxes the mind to comprehend the magnitude of the Goodrich Ranch’s magnificent pastoral setting in the Texas Hill Country. In addition to six and one-half miles of majestic frontage on Texas’ largest river, the Colorado, the ranch also contains over twenty-five miles of clear, running spring-fed creeks. Panoramic vistas are all over the ranch. One of the nation’s largest nesting grounds for the American Bald Eagle lies within one-half mile of the ranch’s southern boundary. It is a naturalist’s paradise. White pelicans, osprey, egrets, terns and herons can be seen nesting in the ranch’s elm, maple, ash, sycamore and oak trees. It is not uncommon at all to spot a majestic Bald Eagle soaring by at sixty-five miles per hour (that’s the eagle’s flight speed… not your vehicle’s)!

The Goodrich Ranch is a special place, a private place, almost a sacred place. As one walks beside the crystal clear waters of Beaver Creek, every Audubon Society image one has ever seen again comes flooding through one’s mind. The raw beauty of nature in this wildest state immediately touches one’s soul. The reverence in the silence of the land makes one almost ask for permission to walk around the bend in the creek to see the next incredible nature scene. Robert Goodrich fiercely guarded and protected the ranch’s natural habitat and vegetation. His great respect for the land has preserved the raw natural beauty that can be found nowhere else but within the Goodrich Ranch’s fence lines.