FAIR OAKS RANCH, TEXAS.   Fair Oaks Ranch is a Hill Country community located in northern Bexar County just off Interstate 10 and adjacent to Camp Bullis Military Reservation. The city is approximately 22 miles northwest of San Antonio and 7 miles southeast of Boerne, and its limits also stretch into neighboring Comal and Kendall counties. During the 1930s Ralph E. Fair, Sr., a successful oilman and rancher, purchased several land tracts that became the 5000-acre Fair Oaks Ranch. He originally focused his efforts on raising racehorses, but in the 1940s Fair began cattle ranching and developed his own Hereford strain. His pioneering work in a bovine artificial insemination program and promotion of superior show cattle garnered international attention and brought prospective cattle buyers from all over the world.

After the deaths of Fair and his wife in the late 1960s, family heirs opened sections of the ranch for development, and a land office sold ranchettes of 5 acres and 10 to 12 acres. During the 1970s expansion continued, and a homeowner's association was formed in 1975 with Boots Gaubatz as president. In 1977 a tennis club was constructed, and in 1978 builders expanded on the original Ralph Fair home to create the Fair Oaks Ranch Golf and Country Club. By the mid-1980s residents explored the option to form a city. Due to state restrictions regarding population density, two cities, Fair Oaks North and Fair Oaks South, were incorporated, with Gaubatz serving as mayor of Fair Oaks South and Don King as mayor of Fair Oaks North. These founding fathers, along with homeowner's association board member Robert L. Herring, eventually helped to combine the two communities into one, named Fair Oaks Ranch, on January 21, 1988.

In 1990 Fair Oaks Ranch had a population of 1,860. Throughout the 1990s development of new homes and businesses continued, and by 2000 the population of the high-income community had increased to 4,695. The city had a police force, emergency services, and fire protection from the nearby Leon Springs Volunteer Fire Department. An elementary school was part of the Boerne Independent School District. As of 2003 Boots Gaubatz had served as the only mayor of Fair Oaks Ranch during its fifteen-year history