Frijole Ranch, Historic ranch in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas, United States.

Frijole Ranch is a complex of seven stone buildings in a desert setting. It contains a main house, bunkhouse, barn, springhouse, storage shed, schoolhouse, and double outhouse, with stone walls enclosing the entire site.

The Rader brothers built the ranch around 1876 beside Frijole Spring, the first settlers on the southeast side of the mountains; they left in the late 1880s. The Herring family of North Carolina held it until 1895, when the Wolcotts moved to Midland. The Smiths occupied the vacant ranch from 1906, ran a post office from 1916 to 1942, and sold it to Judge Jesse Coleman Hunter for $55,000. Hunter's son sold the land to the National Park Service in 1966 for $1.5 million.

The name Frijole comes from beans that were once grown here. The Smith family made this place a gathering point for nearby settlements and ran a post office from 1906 onward.

The museum building opens seasonally with staff on hand, while the grounds stay open year-round for exploration. You will find picnic tables under large trees where you can rest and eat.

The ranch's stone rubble wall encloses all seven buildings, and the complex is considered the most complete early ranching operation in the Guadalupe Mountains. The Smiths installed a hydraulic ram to pump water and carbide lamps in the house, later replaced by electric lights run by a wind generator.