A Texas vacuum salesman spent 40 years turning 5,500 acres back to wild

PC: Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve A drive through the Texas Hill Country can make the landscape appear almost timeless. Limestone ridges rise above open grassland, scattered trees break up the horizon and streams cut through the valleys. But the appearance can hide a very different history.When J. David Bamberger went looking for ranchland in 1969, he was not interested in buying a beautiful, finished property. He wanted what he called the worst piece of land he could find. As reported by Selah Bamberger Ranch Preserve, he eventually bought 3,000 acres in Blanco County, near Johnson City, with a very specific purpose: to see whether badly overgrazed and neglected land could be brought back to functional health. Over the years, he added adjoining parcels until the property reached 5,500 acres. What followed became one of Texas' largest private habitat restoration projects.How Bamberger turned a fortune from business into a decades-long Texas land restoration projectBamberger's path to the Texas Hill Country was unusual. Born in rural Ohio in 1928, he grew up in poverty and developed an early interest in nature and land restoration through his mother, Hester.She gave him Louis Brom...