Pine Country

(IS🎭) Before Pine Ridge became a ranch name, the country around it was already held together by work. By fences and wagon roads. By church books and merchant ledgers. By cotton rows, smokehouses, timber crews, creek crossings, railroad schedules, births, debts, and promises remembered by people who did not always agree on the same words. It is autumn 1897 in the East Texas Pineywoods. The Caldwells are making Pine Ridge Ranch official, but they are not the only people shaping what comes next. The Sutters remember older uses of land and water. Black landholders and institutions such as Shady Grove protect property, education, worship, records, and mutual aid. Provisioners, care workers, teamsters, craftspeople, smallholders, tenants, merchants, clerks, mill crews, and newcomers each face different opportunities and costs.