Donley County Ranches
RO RANCH
HALF CIRCLE K RANCH
SPADE RANCH
DIAMOND TAIL RANCH
QUARTER CIRCLE HEART RANCH
PANHANDLE STOCK ASSOCIATION
RO RANCH
The RO (Rowe) Ranch was named for its founder, Alfred Rowe. It
began in 1878 when the adventurous Englishman erected a dugout on
Glenwood Creek, just above its junction with the Salt Fork in
Donley County, and began buying cattle.
His first herd, which he branded with the RO, consisted of
longhorns trailed up from South Texas by James Hughes, Joe Horn,
and a man named McCormick. Charles Goodnight helped Rowe choose
his first cattle and, as a favor, also lent him an employee,
Green McCullum.
In 1880 Rowe located his foundation herd on Skillet Creek and
built a two-room adobe headquarters. After forming a partnership
with his brothers Vincent and Barnard, Rowe negotiated with
neighboring ranches for the purchase of additional grazing lands
with choice water supply.
Gradually he extended his range over an area of about thirty
square miles, parts of four counties, most of which was
eventually fenced. Beginning in July 1887 the Rowes leased
sixty-three sections in northwestern Collingsworth County for two
years. In 1898 the partnership was terminated, with Alfred
retaining sole ownership. By 1900 the RO covered 100,000 acres
(200 square miles) and ran 15,000 cattle, which had been improved
with the purchase of Hereford and Durham bulls.
By 1885 a seven-room frame ranchhouse had been constructed just
north of the adobe, which was subsequently used as a messhall and
bunkhouse. Jasper Stevens, the range boss who hauled the lumber
in by oxcart from Dodge City, and his bride were the first
occupants of this house.
Later L. C. Beverly, formerly of the JA Ranch, and his wife
resided there after his appointment as manager of the RO. A
garden provided vegetables not only for RO employees but also
those of neighboring ranches. About 1894 Rowe bought from R. B.
Edgell another ranchhouse within five miles of Clarendon
overlooking the Salt Fork of the Red River. He enlarged it into
nine rooms with lumber hauled from Wichita Falls.
After its completion Rowe set up the "River Ranch" as a
second RO headquarters and guest house, furnishing it with solid
pieces from England, old clocks, and hunting prints. It was to
this new headquarters that Rowe took his bride, Constance Ethel
Kingsley, in 1901. Corrals, sheds, barns, and a new bunkhouse
were added to this isolated bit of England.
Bob Muir and Matthew (Bones) Hooks were among the notable cowboys
who worked for the RO. William Beverley, Joe Williams, and Jim
Christal served successively as foremen.
After Rowe's death in the Titanic disaster of 1912, the family
continued to run the ranch. W. H. Patrick, Rowe's banker in
Clarendon, administered the Texas properties until the
appointment of Bernard Rowe as permanent administrator of the
estate. By that time the RO range had been reduced to 72,000
acres in Donley and Gray counties.
In 1917 William J. Lewis, a former top hand for the RO, arranged
to purchase this acreage and the cattle from the Rowes for
$595,113.26. The deed, which was formally signed on July 1, 1918,
required $565.50 worth of revenue stamps.
Lewis and his son, Will, Jr., continued to use the RO brand and
Rowe's policies over the years. By 1936 the ranch covered 62,289
acres and ran more than 8,000 cattle. After the younger Lewis's
death in 1961 the family sold much of the ranch.
The large, rambling English-style ranchhouse, built by Rowe in
the 1880s and backdropped by gaunt cottonwood trees planted by
Jasper Stevens, stands near Skillet Creek about five miles south
of McLean, which Rowe helped found at the turn of the century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gus L. Ford, ed., Texas Cattle Brands (Dallas:
Cockrell, 1936). Laura V. Hamner, Short Grass and Longhorns
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943). Willie Newbury
Lewis, Between Sun and Sod (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press,
1938; rev. ed., College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
1976). Willie Newbury Lewis, Tapadero: The Making of a Cowboy
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972). Estelle D. Tinkler,
"Nobility's Ranche: A History of the Rocking Chair
Ranche," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 15 (1942). J. N.
Weaver, History of the Rowe Ranch (MS, Interview Files,
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, 1934).
H. Allen Anderson
HALF CIRCLE K RANCH
The Half Circle K Ranch, known originally as the Bar O, was
bought and patented by Thomas Richards and J. W. Sacra in 1882.
It was a comparatively small outfit, 31,000 acres sandwiched
between the ranges of the JA, the Diamond F, and the Quarter
Circle Heartq on the Salt Fork of the Red River, eighteen miles
northwest of Old Clarendon in Donley County.
Richards soon sold his half to E. C. and J. W. Suggs (or Sugg)
whose land and cattle holdings included a vast range in the
Indian Territory. The Sugg brothers and Sacra continued to use
the Bar O brand. Fred Patching, a bronc-buster known by the
sobriquet the Bar O Kid, was the ranch's most famous employee.
Other Bar O cowhands included Pat Gormley, Dave Buchanan, Ed
Johnson, Art Sherrod, Barr Brown, Don Blaylock, Clint Phillips,
Boney the cook, and a black race jockey named Billy Freeman.
Although the Half Circle K's life was brief, it was the proving
ground of William Jenks Lewis, who gained valuable experience
there in his gradual climb to success as a wealthy cattleman and
eventual owner of the RO Ranch.
In September 1885 the Bar O brand was discontinued by Bill
Koogle, who bought the ranch in partnership with his
brothers-in-law. A native of Maryland, Koogle at the age of
seventeen had left Gettysburg College to hunt on the buffalo
plains in Kansas.
From there he moved to Colorado, where he became involved with
his older brother's tannery and was put in charge of its
freighting operations. After making his way into the Panhandle,
Koogle made the acquaintance of Charles Goodnight, who reportedly
outfitted him to kill buffalo on the Palo Duro range.
In 1882 Koogle and a partner were contracted by Goodnight to
build the first barbed wire fences for the JA. After they ceased
their partnership and divided their earnings, Koogle invested his
half in the Sacra and Suggs Ranch. His brothers-in-law, whom he
invited to move to Donley County, became his new partners in the
venture.
Charles J. Lewis arrived from Maryland with his wife, Hallie, and
their children, and Ralph Jefferson came with his wife, Em, from
Washington, D. C. Koogle stocked the Donley County spread with
cattle bought in Tyler and the Half Circle K brand, chosen in his
honor, was registered in the name of the three partners.
Late in the summer of 1885 Koogle hired trail drivers but failed
to hire a man to supervise them. Some of the yearlings were
stolen on the way, and several calves died from neglect on the
part of the trail drivers. The drivers also abducted a small
black boy named Birl Brown, who had wandered from his home hear
Tyler. Brown was subsequently adopted by Boney the cook, and he
grew up to become a permanent cowhand. Koogle kept Fred Patching
and other Bar O cowboys.
Koogle built a comfortable stone ranchhouse for his wife Carrie,
from Kansas City. They had two children. Flamboyant and
adventurous, he often drove a team of eight oxen yoked as one,
whenever he was not traveling by his own Pullman railroad car.
His partners differed from each other, as well as from him.
Ralph Jefferson, who grew up in the high society of Washington,
D.C., was a noted linguist, actor, and dilettante, and Charlie
Lewis was a quiet, scholarly man who had done well as a merchant;
neither possessed many of the qualities usually associated with
frontiersmen.
With such diverse personalities running it, the Half Circle K had
its share of dramatic events. However, the venture was doomed to
failure because of mismanagement and the elements. Although the
ranch was an abundant grassland crossed diagonally by the Salt
Fork, a severe drought in the summer of 1886 and blizzards the
following winter took their toll.
Moreover, Koogle's infant son died in January 1886, causing the
griefstricken Carrie to spend most of the next two years in
Kansas City. Bad investments and loans, plus a tendency to
gamble, caused Koogle to go heavily into debt. The ranch declined
after 1886.
By 1890 Charles Goodnight and Johnnie Martin had purchased the
Half Circle K and operated it as the Goodnight-Thayer Cattle
company until 1900, when they sold it. Koogle, who was almost
penniless and a heavy drinker, spent his remaining years in
Clarendon, where he died around the turn of the century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Virginia Browder, Donley County: Land O' Promise
(Wichita Falls, Texas: Nortex, 1975). Harley True Burton, A
History of the JA Ranch (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1928; rpt.,
New York: Argonaut, 1966). J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949). Willie Newbury
Lewis, Between Sun and Sod (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press,
1938; rev. ed., College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
1976). Willie Newbury Lewis, Tapadero: The Making of a Cowboy
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972). Pauline D. and R. L.
Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas
Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981).
H. Allen Anderson
SPADE RANCH
The Spade Ranch actually was two separate ranches in West Texas,
each under different ownership, but whose histories are linked by
barbed wire and a distinctive brand. The first ranch was begun in
the Panhandle by John F. (Spade) Evans, who formed a corporation
with Judson P. Warner, an agent who sold Joseph F. Glidden's
barbed wire.
On August 25, 1880, J. F. Evans and Company purchased
twenty-three sections of land in Donley County near Clarendon
from J. A. Reynolds. Although it is not known who originally
designed the unique brand, which resembles a shovel or spade, it
was first used on a herd that Evans and Warner gathered in Lamar
County.
The partners trailed these cattle to the abundant Panhandle
grasses and turned them loose on open range near Saddler Creek.
Their first camp was established on nearby Glenwood Creek, but
later they erected a log house on Barton Creek, which they
designated as permanent headquarters.
Since neither Evans nor Warner had much time from other business
interests to spend in Donley County, they turned active
management of the Spade over to such capable men as Baldy Oliver
and Dave Nall. Alfred Rowe worked briefly with the Spade outfit
when he was starting his own operation, the RO Ranch, in 1880-81.
Warner supervised the fencing of the Spade pastures. During
roundup time the Spade men worked in cooperation with the
neighboring RO.
Meanwhile J. Taylor Barr was operating from the headquarters of
his Renderbrook Ranch near Renderbrook Springs in Mitchell
County, twenty-five miles south of Colorado City. In 1882
brothers Dudley H. and John W. Snyder bought him out and enlarged
the outfit so that by 1887 it consisted of more than 300,000
acres in four counties.
After the terrible droughts and blizzards of the late 1880s,
Isaac L. Ellwood, co-owner with Joseph F. Glidden in the barbed
wire patent, bought the Spade Ranch, including the brand and some
800 cattle, from Evans and Warner. Seeking to establish a new
market for his product, Ellwood also purchased the Renderbrook
Ranch from the Snyders and stocked it with the Spade cattle.
Although the Donley County land was sold out piecemeal over the
following year, he continued to use the Spade brand on all
subsequently acquired cattle. In 1889 Ellwood obtained the
128,000-acre north pasture of the Snyder brothers' ranch and
named it the Spade Ranch. He had the brand registered in Mitchell
County in 1889 and in Hale and Lubbock counties in 1891.
In 1902 the Spade was enlarged by the addition of adjacent tracts
to a total of 262,000 acres, extending eight to ten miles in
width and fifty-four miles in length. The main headquarters was
located in southeastern Lamb County, while the South Camp,
nucleus of the Spade's south pasture addition, was in eastern
Hockley County near the site of present Smyer.
Ellwood made his oldest son, William Leonard, manager of his
Texas ranches. In 1910, after Ellwood's death, W. L. and a
younger brother, Erwin Perry Ellwood, jointly inherited the Spade
and Renderbrook ranches. Both ranches were enclosed with six-wire
fences, and five-wire cross fences divided them into pastures
averaging forty sections each.
The water problem was solved by the use of wells and windmills
placed at intervals of four miles. The Spade and Renderbrook were
stocked with about 15,000 cattle each. Although the Ellwoods
first used Red Durhams, they soon found that Hereford cattle were
better suited to the dry South Plains environment and so changed
to Hereford bulls in 1919.
The Renderbrook, being farther south, was used principally as a
breeding ranch, and the young steers were transferred to the
Spade to graze. Each year prior to 1908 from 3,000 to 5,000
four-year-old steers were freighted to market in Kansas by the
nearest railroad, usually at Bovina or Amarillo. From 1908 to
1912 Spade cattle were driven to Abernathy.
Then in 1912 the Santa Fe Railroad built through the ranch to
Littlefield, enabling the Spade to ship its cattle from a switch
without having to drive them long distances. J. Frank Norfleet
was the first foreman of the Spade Ranch in 1889. He was
succeeded by D. N. (Uncle Dick) Arnett in 1905. This marked the
beginning of the Spade's "Arnett Dynasty," during which
Arnett relatives ran the ranch.
In 1924 W. L. Ellwood put the northern acreage on the market as
farmland. That October 6,200 three-year-old steers were shipped.
The following spring a second roundup brought in 5,200 more
cattle. By 1926 about 80 percent of the northern division land
had been sold, and the town of Spade had sprung up near the old
headquarters.
Subsequently the ranch headquarters was moved to the South Camp.
Three Santa Fe Railroad branches across the Spade gave rise to
the towns of Anton, Ropesville, Wolfforth, and Smyer. By 1938
Ellwood Farms, as the enterprise was called, had sold
approximately 189,000 acres, most of which had been placed under
cultivation. Of the 914 original purchasers, 84 percent were
Texans.
Nearly half of the buyers secured Federal Land Bank loans, and
during the 1930s a federal government model farm rehabilitation
project was located on former Spade land. By 1947 colonization of
the old Spade Ranch lands was completed, with the Ellwood estate
retaining only 21,754 acres in Hockley County. Spade cattle were
still being run in the 1980s on the Renderbrook Ranch by some of
the Ellwood heirs.
In 1970 the Ellwood estate gave the old Renderbrook-Spade
blacksmith shop to the Ranching Heritage Association in Lubbock;
it was one of the first buildings to be reassembled on the
grounds of the Ranching Heritage Center. Over the years the Spade
Ranch has been praised for its innovative use of modern
technology.
During the early twentieth century, ranch managers installed a
telephone system and used automobiles on the ranch. In the 1970s
they used embryo transplantation in breeding practices.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lillian Brasher, Hockley County (2 vols., Canyon,
Texas: Staked Plains, 1976). Gus L. Ford, ed., Texas Cattle
Brands (Dallas: Cockrell, 1936). Richard C. Hopping, "The
Ellwoods: Barbed Wire and Ranches," Museum Journal 6 (1962).
Steve Kelton, Renderbrook: A Century under the Spade Brand (Fort
Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1989). Pauline D. and R.
L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the
Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981). Evalyn
Parrott Scott, A History of Lamb County (Sudan, Texas: Lamb
County Historical Commission, 1968). Jesse Wallace Williams, The
Big Ranch Country (Wichita Falls: Terry, 1954; 2d ed., Wichita
Falls: Nortex, 1971).
H. Allen Anderson
DIAMOND TAIL RANCH
The Diamond Tail brand was first used in the late 1860s, when
Mose Dameron of Jack County began running cattle on land now in
De Baca and Roosevelt counties, New Mexico. In 1870, however,
Dameron sold it, along with his herd, to the brothers Jim C. and
William R. Curtis in Jack County.
After securing a government contract to supply beef to the Fort
Reno and Fort Sill Indian reservations, the Curtises were allowed
to graze their herd along Cache Creek near Fort Sill. When the
contract expired, the brothers established their first Diamond
Tail headquarters, on the Big Wichita River in Clay County, near
Cambridge.
To this range they drove from the Indian Territory 13,000 cattle
in one herd, the largest trail drive ever reported in Northwest
Texas. Soon the range was crowded. After his brother's death Bill
Curtis formed a new partnership with Tom J. Atkinson. In 1878
they moved the Diamond Tail herd north to Groesbeck Creek, near
the site of what is now Quanah, and set up a headquarters built
from native stone.
Even then, Curtis had already cast eyes on the Panhandle and its
abundant grasslands; early in 1879 Dave Bowers drove the first of
the Diamond Tail cattle to a new pasture in southeastern
Childress County. A small rock-walled dugout in the shelter of a
bluff at the mouth of Gypsum Creek served as his headquarters,
though it later became part of the Shoe Nail Ranch.
A drift fence was erected fifteen miles to the south and extended
west to the site of Parnell, in Hall County. Later, Curtis moved
his headquarters to Doe Creek in Collingsworth County, near the
creek's junction with Buck Creek. There he and his men occupied a
two-room shack with a kitchen nearby.
They built dugouts and picket shacks as line camps on various
sections of the Diamond Tail range, which at its peak covered
portions of Childress, Collingsworth, Donley, Hall, and Greer
counties. A supply store was maintained at the headquarters to
sell to bullwhackers freighting north from Gainesville, and a
stage stand was established there when a stage line from Wichita
Falls to Mobeetie started.
The Diamond Tail headquarters, at a site four miles north of the
place where Memphis was later established, soon became known as
Six-Shooter Camp or Pistol Palace, after one of the ranch
employees, Scott (Six-Shooter) Ferguson. Bob Butterworth served
as ranch bookkeeper, and other notable cowboys included John
Dodson, Sam Bean, George Lewis (Tex) Rickard, Town (Timberleg)
Embree, John Maddox, and Jim (Pie-Biter) Baker.
Pat Wolfarth, Hall county sheriff, served also as foreman of the
Diamond Tail until he shot Eugene de Bauerenfiend, publisher of
the Hall County Herald, at Memphis on August 10, 1891. Wolfarth
was later tried and given a fifteen-year prison sentence for
second-degree murder, but Curtis subsequently obtained a pardon
for him from Governor Charles A. Culberson. In the meantime,
George Wilks succeeded Wolfarth as range boss.
Unlike many large Panhandle ranches, the Diamond Tail was never
sold out to British capital during the height of the "Beef
Bonanza." After the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway built
through in 1887, the stage stand was discontinued, and the town
of Giles became the Diamond Tail's leading shipping point and
social center.
In the lean years of the late 1880s, the ranch went bankrupt. It
was then put into the hands of a receiver, Sam Lazarus, who
within a few years put the enterprise back on a sound footing.
The Diamond Tail herd was saved from the terrible blizzard of
February 11, 1893, when Curtis cut his fences to let the cattle
drift southward.
To build up the blood of the Diamond Tail herd Curtis and
Atkinson purchased fine cattle from Charles Goodnight of the JA
Ranch. Throughout the peak years the partners branded from 10,000
to 15,000 calves and ran average herds of 60,000 head. From 1890
to 1895 nesters came to the ranch to claim school sections, with
the result that the Diamond Tail reduced its operations, sold its
cows, and operated as a steer ranch only.
Curtis began moving his cattle to Chavez County, New Mexico,
after 1895, keeping only 16,000 acres in Hall and Donley counties
for blooded stock and a few fine bulls purchased from Charles W.
Armour of Kansas City. Bill Curtis's oldest son, Jim, went with
his bride to New Mexico to manage the Diamond Tails there; he
gathered a large herd by buying out the DZ, the 9R, and other
ranches. It took over two years to receive and brand all the
cattle then belonging to the ranch.
Jim Curtis and his brothers continued ranching in New Mexico for
some time. Bill Curtis was accidentally killed in December 1901,
and his heirs retained interest in twenty-five sections of
Panhandle property until 1905, when they sold the land to John M.
Browder.
Browder, who continued the Diamond Tail brand, later divided the
ranch among his children. In the 1970s his heirs were still using
the brand.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Virginia Browder, Donley County: Land O' Promise
(Wichita Falls, Texas: Nortex, 1975). Gus L. Ford, ed., Texas
Cattle Brands (Dallas: Cockrell, 1936). Laura V. Hamner, Short
Grass and Longhorns (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943).
H. Allen Anderson
QUARTER CIRCLE HEART RANCH
The Quarter Circle Heart Ranch was established when Lewis H.
Carhart, the founder of the original Clarendon colony, invested
part of his fortune in cattle. Since his colonization scheme
occupied most of his time, Carhart initially ran only a few
hundred head. The success of other large cattle companies,
however, prompted him in 1883 to extend his own operations.
His brother-in-law, Alfred P. Sully, of the New York investment
firm of Austin and Corbett, visited Clarendon to arrange for a
syndicate and then returned east to begin foreign negotiations,
while Carhart worked to increase the herd and improve the ranch
properties. The ranch had been under the temporary management of
J. C. Murdock, but with its enlargement Carhart sought out an
experienced cowman.
He found him in Al S. McKinney, an Irishman who came highly
recommended after having worked for the Spade Ranch. Early in
1884 a debenture company was founded in England, and Carhart
sailed there to sell company stock to prospective buyers.
Organization of the Clarendon Land Investment and Agency Company
followed.
After returning to assume the managerial responsibilities,
Carhart registered his Quarter Circle Heart brand and added to
his original holdings (343 sections) those of Frank Houston and
S. V. Barton on McClellan Creek. Foreman Al McKinney took charge
of the increased herds. Archie Williams, an elderly English
veterinarian, was chosen to manage the new horse ranch that
Carhart had established on the former Houston property.
A dugout on Carroll Creek served as the first company
headquarters; nearby was a two-room bunkhouse constructed of rock
and sod. When McKinney was married, the ranch office was moved to
the front room of his new house on an adjoining section. In
addition, the ranch contained three division line camps. At its
peak, the Quarter Circle Heart range covered 250,000 acres of
land, in the center of which lay the town of Clarendon.
Its longhorn cattle numbered from 15,000 to 35,000 head.
Neighboring ranches included the JA, the RO, the Half Circle K,
and the Diamond F. As the only settlement in their midst,
Clarendon became the supply center and social hub. Noted cowboys
who worked for the "Hearts" included Jesse S. Wynne,
Frank Groves, Tom Martindale, Al Gentry, and Henry W. Taylor.
The prosperity of the Quarter Circle Heart was short-lived,
especially after 1887, when Clarendon moved its townsite five
miles south to the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway tracks. The
drought and blizzard of 1886-87, the "Big Die-Up", had
taken their toll.
Increasing dissatisfaction among the company's British
stockholders, many of whom had never received a dividend from
their investments, prompted the executives to send the company
secretary, Count Cecil Kearney, to the Panhandle for an
on-the-spot investigation.
Carhart and McKinney, upon learning that Kearney would arrive on
a certain day, both resigned without notice and left Clarendon.
Kearney's inspection tour revealed conditions worse than he had
suspected. On the range where 35,000 head of cattle had grazed,
he could find only a fraction of that number.
Signs of gross mismanagement in all areas of the enterprise led
to a complete reorganization, with Henry Taylor as range boss and
Charles O'Donel, Kearney's nephew, as manager. Over the next few
years, the Quarter Circle Heart range was divided into farms,
school land, and settlements. By 1895 the brand had been
discontinued.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Virginia Browder, Donley County: Land O' Promise
(Wichita Falls, Texas: Nortex, 1975). Gus L. Ford, ed., Texas
Cattle Brands (Dallas: Cockrell, 1936). Willie Newbury Lewis,
Between Sun and Sod (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1938;
rev. ed., College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1976).
Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of Panhandle Pioneers
(Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945).
H. Allen Anderson
PANHANDLE STOCK
ASSOCIATION
During the late 1870s, as more settlers and cowmen moved into the
Panhandle, cattle rustling became a constant menace despite the
efforts of Capt. George W. Arrington and his company of Texas
Rangers. In addition to outlaws, Texas fever, brought on by ticks
carried by cattle driven from downstate to Kansas, decimated many
Panhandle herds.
To combat these problems, Charles Goodnight discussed the idea of
organization with other large cattlemen, including Thomas S.
Bugbee, Orville H. Nelson, and H. W. (Hank) Cresswell. Employing
cowboys as messengers, they sent word of their proposed meeting
to various area ranches as far south as the Matador. In March
1880 the ranchers convened at Mark Huselby's hotel in Mobeetie
and elected Goodnight president.
Within the following year the Panhandle Stock Association of
Texas had been formally organized and its bylaws drawn up after
a threeday session. As Goodnight remarked, its purpose was for
the mutual benefit, cooperation, and protection of the ranchmen.
A $250 reward was posted for the apprehension of anyone stealing
cattle belonging to association members, and as it grew the
organization hired inspectors, detectives, and attorneys to
arrest and prosecute rustlers operating against area ranchers,
both large and small. Whether he had one cow or thousands, any
Panhandle settler was welcome to join the association on an equal
footing.
Membership guaranteed him the use of association lawyers for
legal battles and its inspectors for keeping tabs on his cattle
brand everywhere, even at distant markets and shipping places. In
1881 the association sent John W. Poe to join Pat (Patrick F.)
Garrett in tracking down Billy the Kid (Henry McCarty), whose
gang had been rustling Panhandle cattle from their base in New
Mexico.
Not even large cattleholders, whose drovers sometimes killed
association beef to eat as they passed through on drives, were
immune to prosecution. In 1882 John F. (Spade) Evans and other
association leaders lobbied for formation of the Thirty-fifth
Judicial District. Temple Houston, as its first attorney, gained
the first conviction on behalf of the organization.
Besides protection from rustlers, the Panhandle Stock Association
was responsible for building the great drift fence across the
northern Panhandle in 1882, and it also imposed the
"Winchester Quarantine" to control the movement of
tickinfested herds from south Texas.
Furthermore, it played a primary role in the organization of
Donley County in 1882 after Goodnight suggested Clarendon as a
more central location for meetings. When Benjamin H. White, the
first county judge, mentioned the need for a school, the
association, spearheaded by its secretary, T. R. Dickson,
provided necessary funds for the establishment and maintenance of
the Panhandle's first public school, primarily for the benefit of
poor nesters' children.
During its six years of separate existence, Spade Evans, O. H.
Nelson, and Robert Moody succeeded Goodnight as presidents of the
association. These men, in addition to Nick T. Eaton, T. S.
Bugbee and Hank Cresswell, also served intermittently on the
executive committee.
As more counties were organized, the activities of
law-enforcement units like Pat Garrett's LS Home Rangers, plus
the election of responsible public officials, served to lessen
cattle theft considerably. Rustlers increasingly found their
occupation hazardous, and were compelled to either flee the
Panhandle or operate on a much smaller scale.
In 1886 Charles Goodnight left the association to join the
Northwest Texas Cattle Raisers Association, founded at Graham in
1877. This association eventually became the Texas and
Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, whose field and market
inspectors continue to render effective service in the war
against cattle rustling.
The loss of Goodnight, combined with drought, depression, and the
close of the open range, led to the demise of the Panhandle Stock
Association by 1889.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1949). Willie Newbury Lewis,
Between Sun and Sod (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1938;
rev. ed., College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1976).
John R. Wunder, At Home on the Range: Essays on the History of
Western Social and Domestic Life (Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Press, 1985).
H. Allen Anderson
(information from The Handbook of Texas
Online --
a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and
culture.)