Wheel-Lift Towing in Chapman Ranch, TX.

What is wheel-lift towing like in Chapman Ranch, TX?

Chapman Ranch sits at the south end of FM 70, seven miles below Corpus Christi, where cotton farming and no services define the call.

In January 1919, Philip Chapman purchased 34,631 acres of the Laureles Division of the King Ranch to convert from cattle range to mechanized farmland. By 1926 more than 20,000 acres were under cultivation, and in the late 1920s Chapman Ranch was promoted as the largest mechanized farm in the world. The ranch developed a superior long-staple cotton strain whose seed was marketed internationally, and the community that grew up around it had a hospital, two schools, a cotton gin, its own power plant, and a commissary with a grocery, hardware store, soda fountain, automobile agency, and post office all under one roof. By 1941 the town had wound down and the land was partitioned among Chapman's heirs, who still farm it today. Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi acquired the Chapman Ranch Records collection in August 2025 for its South Texas archives. FM 70 is the road that connects Chapman Ranch to Corpus Christi, running seven miles south from the city's edge to the community. State Highway 286, the Crosstown Expressway, runs south from downtown Corpus Christi and transitions to FM 70 near the southern city limit. Drivers coming off the Crosstown onto the two-lane surface road sometimes carry freeway speed into a farm road environment. The deeper you go on FM 70 toward Chapman Ranch, the farther you are from any commercial service. Cotton harvest runs August through November. That season puts grain haulers, cotton trailers, and combines onto FM 70 and the surrounding county roads daily. When a combine breaks down in the field south of Chapman Ranch or a grain hauler throws a tire on FM 70, there's one number to call and it's in Corpus Christi. We know FM 70. It is covered.