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E Cross Cattle Company
For more than 100 years now, the Cornelius family has been working cattle on their family land in Matagorda County in Southeast Texas.
Herff Cornelius’ grandfather bought the original tract in 1917. Herff’s father continued the ranching tradition after his father passed on, and Herff did the same.
The ranch is bordered on the south by the Intracoastal Waterway and has 4.3 miles of frontage on Caney Creek. It is a premiere piece of coastal prairie rangeland, providing productive grazing land and exceptional wildlife habitat. Like his father and grandfather before him, Herff is a hands-on manager of the property and treasures the land he stewards.
When his father died in 2013, followed by his mother’s passing in 2014, the family had a tough decision on their hands as they contemplated the transfer of family land from one generation to the next. With seven sisters, and literally dozens of other family members to consider, it was not an easy decision. One thing they all agreed upon was that it had to be a unanimous decision: either keep it all, or sell it all.
About that time, Herff learned about the Texas Agricultural Land Trust (TALT) and how a conservation easement might help their family.
“One thing led to another and we began serious discussions about how we might keep this land together to benefit everybody,” said Herff.
It was a complicated series of discussions that involved multiple partners over several years, including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), the General Land Office (GLO) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). These partners got involved because of the tract’s significant natural assets, and the property location adjacent to Matagorda Bay, which is a conservation priority for government agencies and conservation NGOs alike.
More than six years after the Cornelius family began considering the idea, the conservation easement finally closed in January 2023, forever protecting 3,547 acres of precious coastal habitat.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Herff Cornelius will continue to work the land that has given his family so much. Thanks to the conservation easement held by TALT, his children, and grandchildren, and those of his seven sisters will have that same option.
“I think everybody's just really happy that future generations will be able to continue to use this property for ranching, hunting and conservation of the wildlife we all enjoy,” said Herff. “Everybody is just very happy about that.”
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