Forestry mulching, dirt work, ponds and site prep from the family crew based right here in Ivanhoe, serving landowners along FM 273, FM 1396 and SH 78 and across northern Fannin County.
Ivanhoe is an unincorporated community in northeast Fannin County, about ten miles north of Bonham and not far from the Texas–Oklahoma line. It started out as Hawkins’ Prairie and took the name Ivanhoe in 1885, after Sir Walter Scott’s novel. The Sam Rayburn school campus on FM 273 serves Ivanhoe, Telephone and Elwood. The land is moderately rolling blackland prairie with claypan toward the Red River, and Bois d’Arc Creek drains the county on its way north. Bois d’Arc Lake, a North Texas Municipal Water District reservoir of roughly 16,500 acres, filled in April 2024 and sits a short drive southeast down FM 1396.
Fannin County grew almost 10 percent between 2020 and 2025, and the lake is a big part of why. Acreage that was hay ground and pasture is changing hands, rural estate tracts have come before the Bois d’Arc Lake Zoning Commission along FM 273, and landowners from Ivanhoe to Telephone and Lamasco are clearing for homesites, shops, ponds and fence lines. The Caddo National Grassland, Lake Fannin and Bonham State Park are all a short drive from here.
This is home. Jim, Colton and his younger brother opened 3L Land Services in September 2024 out of Ivanhoe. Jim has more than 40 years in construction and Colton has been on equipment since he was 16, which adds up to 56+ years of combined experience. Roughly half our work is residential landowners and half is commercial and contractor work. When a neighbor calls here, they get the man who will be on the machine.
Every service 3L Land Services offers is available in Ivanhoe and across northern Fannin County, not a reduced list. We work from here, so the same crew and the same equipment that handle clearing, mulching, dirt work, ponds, pads, drives, grading, demolition and fence are never far away. Meet the family crew behind the work, or request a free on-site estimate.
Land around Ivanhoe is a mix of open blackland pasture, wooded pockets of oak and eastern redcedar, and creek-bottom hardwoods like pecan, hackberry and cottonwood. We clear for homesites, hay ground, fence lines and access roads along FM 273, FM 1396 and the county roads around Ivanhoe, Telephone and Lamasco. We clear only what you mark, so the treelines and shade trees you want stay put. We are based here, and for most jobs we are on site within days of an approved estimate.
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Forestry mulching is the service Colton runs most days of the week, and Ivanhoe-area acreage is where it earns its keep: cedar and brush taking over pasture, fence lines that have grown shut, and wooded tracts that need thinning without tearing up the soil. The mulch stays on the ground as cover, with no burn piles and no haul-off. That matters when Fannin County puts a burn ban in place in a dry stretch, as it has in recent years. We also thin selectively for habitat on acreage toward the Caddo National Grassland.
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Dirt work is half of what we do, and a lot of it starts a few miles from our own yard. We trench for water and electric on rural homesites, dig footings, move and haul material, and shape ground before anything gets built on it. Blackland clay holds a trench wall until a hard rain, so we plan the work around the weather. Clearing and excavation run as one job under one crew, which keeps a Fannin County project from getting handed between contractors.
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Before a house, shop or barn goes up, the ground has to be right. We build house and building pads, cut and rock driveways, and install culverts and drainage pipe so water goes where it should instead of across new gravel. Rural entrances off FM 273 and FM 1396 usually cross a ditch, and Fannin County has its own culvert and right-of-way permit forms, so we check what applies before setting pipe. Land near Bois d’Arc Lake can also fall under the lake zoning rules, which we flag on the walk-through.
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The land around Ivanhoe is moderately rolling, and blackland clay does not shed water on its own. A pad graded flat is a pad that ponds, so we set the fall to carry water off the structure and away from the drive. We grade for drainage on new builds, level pastures and yards, and finish-grade after clearing or demolition. Work in a mapped floodplain needs a county floodplain permit, and we check that up front.
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Ponds are a way of life in Fannin County. A pond holds water for livestock, gives you somewhere to fish and adds value to the property. Blackland clay is generally good pond ground, though a soil check is part of every estimate. We dig new stock, fishing and bass ponds, dredge tanks that have silted in, and rebuild dams that seep. Bois d’Arc Lake changed the water picture here, but a good private pond is still worth having.
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Old farmsteads, barns, sheds, abandoned mobile homes and fire-damaged houses are common across rural Fannin County, and when new plans arrive they have to come down. We demolish them, break out slabs and foundations, and haul the debris so you are not left with a pile. Because we run our own excavation equipment, the backfill, leveling and prep for whatever goes in next happens as part of the same job.
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Fence follows clearing. Around Ivanhoe, Telephone and Lamasco we clear the fence line first so the run is straight, then set corner posts and gates and build barbed wire, field fence and pipe or livestock fence. Pasture perimeters, cross-fencing and pipe entrances off FM 273 are typical. One crew handles the whole boundary, so you are not waiting on a fence company to follow behind somebody else.
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With the Caddo National Grassland and the large Riverby Ranch wetland mitigation project nearby, Fannin County landowners know what habitat is worth, and a 1-d-1 wildlife management valuation has to be backed by real habitat work. We build and plant food plots, dig duck sloughs and water features, and clear and thin for habitat. We do not write plans or file with the appraisal district. Your county appraisal district and a wildlife biologist handle that, and we handle the equipment work a plan calls for.
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Local geography and terrain
Ivanhoe sits in the moderately rolling blackland country of northeast Fannin County, with claypan soil toward the Red River. Bois d’Arc Creek, a 68-mile creek that runs past Bonham on its way to the Red River, drains the county. Bois d’Arc Lake was impounded in April 2021 and reached full pool in April 2024, with its dam near FM 897 on the east side. NTMWD owns the shoreline to the 541-foot contour. Riverby Ranch, a roughly 15,000-acre mitigation project of restored wetlands and native grassland, sits in the northeast corner of the county. Caddo National Grassland, Coffee Mill Lake, Lake Davy Crockett and Lake Fannin round out the neighborhood. The county gets about 45 inches of rain a year.
Local roads and access
FM 273 runs through Ivanhoe and northeast to Telephone and Monkstown. FM 1396 starts at SH 78 south of Ivanhoe and runs east through Lamasco toward Honey Grove, with the lake’s north and south boat ramps along it. FM 2029 links FM 1396 to Telephone, and FM 2554 reaches Elwood. SH 78 runs west of us and crosses the Red River at Ravenna into Oklahoma, while US 82 runs through Bonham and Honey Grove to the south. Our crew also works the county roads in the CR 22xx and CR 26xx series around Ivanhoe. Telephone, Lamasco, Monkstown, Elwood and Ravenna are regular stops, not special trips.
Local project experience
Most of what we do around Ivanhoe is rural: clearing overgrown acreage, mulching brush and fence lines, building ponds and getting homesites ready. Fannin County added nearly 10 percent more residents from 2020 to 2025, and the lake pulled in people who want acreage. That shows up as house pads, gravel drives, culverts, trenching, shops, barns and fence on tracts along FM 273 and FM 1396. Roughly half our work is residential landowners, and half is commercial and contractor work.
Local environmental and regulatory awareness
Fannin County Development Services administers subdivision rules, the floodplain ordinance, septic rules and culvert and right-of-way permits. The Bois d’Arc Lake Zoning Regulations, adopted in 2018 and updated in 2023, apply to land within 5,000 feet of the shoreline, and docks need an NTMWD shoreline lease. The creek bottoms along Bois d’Arc Creek are jurisdictional wetlands under federal rules, so we check before moving dirt there. Projects disturbing one acre or more bring state stormwater requirements. Burn bans come from the Fannin County Commissioners Court in dry stretches, and mulching sidesteps them.
We are based in Ivanhoe. Jim quotes it, Colton runs it, and his brother is on the crew. There is no salesman handing your job to a subcontractor and no call center in between. If you have a question at seven in the evening about tomorrow’s work, you are calling the man who will be there tomorrow.
We work blackland clay, claypan and creek-bottom hardwood country every week. We know what the ground does in a wet spring, how Bois d’Arc Creek bottoms behave, and what county and lake rules can change on a job. That is why the estimate reflects what the ground will actually do.
Our machines are ours. Your schedule does not depend on a rental yard, and you are not paying a rental markup built into the quote. We rent only when a job calls for something specialized.
This business is built on faith, and it shapes how we quote a job and how we treat the people we work for. We do not preach at anybody. We try to do right by folks, and we would rather be known for that than anything else.
Every estimate is free and we give it after walking the ground, not from a satellite image. First responders, military and veterans get a discount on every service, including corrections officers. We take cash, check, Zelle and Venmo.
3L Land Services is based in Ivanhoe, so land clearing contractors in Ivanhoe, TX and the communities around us are never a long drive away. We cover northern Fannin County and reach into Grayson, Lamar and Bryan County, Oklahoma.
Areas we serve around Ivanhoe:
Price depends on growth density, tree size, what gets hauled off versus mulched in place, and how much grading you want afterward. Brush and cedar on open blackland pasture clear quickly, while thick timber on creek bottoms takes longer. Mulching in place usually costs less than grubbing stumps and hauling debris. Every estimate is free and follows a walk of the property.
Stem density and size drive per-acre cost more than anything else. Light regrowth goes quickly, and a thick stand of mature trees takes several times as long. Terrain and access matter too. A typical mulching job for us runs four to five days, and we price the job rather than guessing by the acre from a satellite image. The only way to get a number you can plan around is to have us walk it.
Yes. We opened in September 2024 and work out of Ivanhoe. Bonham is about ten miles south, and Telephone, Lamasco, Elwood and Monkstown are close by. For most jobs we are on site within days of an approved estimate, and the estimate itself is free. If you call while we are on a machine, leave a message and we will call back.
We work the northern Fannin County area around Ivanhoe and Telephone, including land near the Caddo National Grassland and Lake Fannin. Federal land has its own boundaries, so confirm exactly where your property line sits before any work starts. Near Bois d’Arc Lake, NTMWD owns the shoreline to the 541-foot contour and the lake zoning rules apply within 5,000 feet of the shore. We flag all of that on the walk-through.
Fannin County has its own culvert and right-of-way permit forms, and requirements can vary by road, so we check before installing anything. Building in a mapped floodplain needs a county floodplain permit. We install driveway culverts, drainage culverts and pipe as part of our site prep work, and we grade the approach so the whole entrance drains.
Size, depth, dam length and dirt volume set the price. Blackland clay is generally good pond ground, though every site is different, and a soil check is part of the estimate. Building a dam, adding a spillway or dredging a silted-in pond all change the number. We give a firm quote after seeing the site.
A 1-d-1 wildlife management valuation in Texas requires you to actively manage habitat, and several practices involve real ground work, such as brush management, selective clearing, food plots and water features. We do that physical work. We do not file your paperwork or advise on taxes. Your county appraisal district and a wildlife biologist handle the plan and application.
