USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
197
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Twenty years ago the principal tonnage carried out of west Texas consisted of live stock. The production of the great staples of corn, wheat and cotton was then relatively insignificant. Perhaps the most noteworthy fact in the history of western Texas is the manner in which its inhabitants have adapted the soil and climate to the production of the standard crops. West of the Brazos valley cotton growing was hardly attempted until within the last quarter of a century. Callahan county only twenty years ago began contributing a few bales to the state's crop, but in 1903 raised about 12,500 bales. Cotton is now a crop practically throughout western Texas. Corn, wheat, vegetables and fruits have a similar history. Years of effort have demonstrated that by proper culti- vation, selection of crops and conservation of soil moisture these lands, once deemed arid, have tremendous possibilities of production and value.
Equally remarkable is the record of west Texas in the upbuilding of towns and the acquisition of the modern facilities of business and domestic welfare. The slow stages of growth and improvement which characterize the towns and cities with half a century or more of history did not occur here. A west Texas city that was founded in the last quar- ter century often is more progressive, better improved, than some of the cities of similar size in the oldest portions of the state. Brownwood, Abilene, San Angelo and other conspicuous examples have water works, electric lighting, paved streets, efficient municipal organizations, schools and other institutions as good as are found elsewhere in the state.
In recent years the business leaders of the larger towns have united their endeavors and ideas under the plan of commercial clubs, and the work of some of these has been particularly efficient. The governing ideal of the commercial club is to promote the prosperity of its community and the state in general, and labors for this end along the concrete lines of producing wealth, either by stimulating home industry and capital or by inducing the immigration of settlers and the investment of outside capital, and by promoting the building of railroads and the establishment of other large industrial agencies. Often due to the work of these commercial bodies, individual cities have expanded trade facilities, secured new trans- portation lines, led the way in municipal improvement, and, as a special feature of commercial club activity, have brought the advantages of par- ticular cities and localities to the knowledge and attention of the world at large.
The figures of the last census permit an interesting study to be made of the movement of population over the central and west Texas region.
198
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
It is apparent that this portion of Texas is in a transition period. Under the economic conditions which still prevail to a large degree, the limit of population is soon reached, and the overplus of growth and immigra- tion spread out into the yet unoccupied areas. Thus it is that the older counties of the central Texas region have during the last decade gained very little in population and in some cases show an actual decrease. At the same time the west Texas counties have exhibited all the characteristics of a newly discovered country. In most of them, at least every other inhabitant has come in during the last decade, and in some of them the residents who were counted there at the preceding census are in the scantiest minority. The railroads, the towns, the activities are all as new as the people, and are often equal or superior to the similar facilities of the older regions.
In the development of a new country, population figures are reliable data of progress. Without people no country becomes a factor in eco- nomic production, and hence has little relation to the welfare of the world in general. But once a region is "settled up"-that is, possesses a popu- lation averaging in number that of similar localities elsewhere-its pros- perity depends on other factors than mere numbers. An ancient philoso- pher stated the matter concisely, as follows, using the word city in the sense of any political community : "They judge of the size of a city by the number of its inhabitants; whereas they ought to regard not their number but their power. A city, too, like an individual, has a work to do; and that city which is to be adapted to the fulfillment of its work is to be deemed greatest."
Applying these generalizations, it will be found that some of the cen- tral Texas counties that have remained stationary in population have nevertheless advanced remarkably in wealth, in diversification of indus- try, in improvement of living conditions. Bell county, whose population increase of only 8 per cent was more than absorbed by the two largest towns, presents one of the fairest and most productive fields of rural im- provement and prosperity in the state. The new era of intensive rather than extensive enterprise has only recently begun in this and adjacent counties, and during the next decade the results will be apparent not only in an enormous increase of wealth and living facilities but also in growth of population, for it is the function of such progress to enable more people to enjoy its advantages.
Following is a tabulated statement showing the population of the various central and west Texas counties during the past decades :
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
199
Counties.
1910.
1900.
1890.
I880.
1870.
1860.
Andrews
975
87
24
33-377
20.518
9,771
4,799
Borden
1,386
776
222
35
.
Bosque
19,013
17,390
14,224
11,217
4,981
2,005
Brown
22,935
16,019
II,42I
8.414
544
244
Burnet
10.755
10,528
10,747
6,855
3,688
2,487
Callahan
12,973
8,768
5,457
3,453
...
...
.....
Coleman
22,618
10,077
6,112
3,603
347
.....
Comanche
27,186
23,009
15,608
8,608
1,00I
709
Concho
6,654
1,427
1,065
800
. .
..
Coryell
21,703
21,308
16,873
10,924
4,124
2,666
Crane
331
51
15
24
Eastland
23.421
17,97I
10,373
4,855
88
99
Erath
32.095
29.966
21,594
II.796
1,80I
2,425
Falls
35,649
33,342
20,706
16,240
9.851
3,614
Fisher
12,596
3,708
2,996
136
Floyd
4,638
2,020
529
3
Foard
5.726
1,568
Freestone
20,557
18,910
15,987
14,921
8,139
6,881
Gaines
1.255
55
68
8
. .
....
Glasscock
1,143
286
208
Hamilton
15,315
13,520
9,313
6.365
733
489
Hill
46,760
41,355
27,583
16,554
7,453
3.653
Hockley
137
44
Hood
10,008
9,146
7.614
6,125
2,585
Howard
8,88I
2,528
1,210
50
...
.....
Irion
1,283
848
870
Johnson
34.460
33,819
22,313
17,91I
4,923
4.305
Jones
24,299
7,053,
3.797
546
Knox
9,625
2,322
1,134
77
Lampasas
9,532
8.625
7,584
5,421
1,344
1,028
Limestone
34,621
32,573
21,678
16,246
8,591
4,537
Llano
6,520
7,30I
6,772
4,962
1,379
I,IOI
Loving
2.49
33
3
.
...
.....
Lynn
1,713
17
24
9
. ...
..
Dawson
2,320
37
29
28I
Ector
1,178
381
224
....
25
Coke
6,412
3,430
2,059
Childress
9.538
2,138
1,175
Bell
49,186
45,535
....
.
....
.....
200 HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Counties.
I910.
1900.
1890.
1880.
1870.
1860.
McCulloch
13,405
3,960
3,217
1,533
I73
...
McLennan
73,250
59,772
39,204
26,934
13,500
6,206
Martin
1,549
332
264
12
Mason
5,683
5,573
5,180
2,655
678
630
Menard
2,707
2,0II
1,215
1,239
667
Midland
3,464
1,741
1,033
Milam
36,780
39,666
24,773
18,659
8,984
5,175
Mills
9,694
7,851
5,493
Mitchell
8,956
2,855
2,059
117
.. ....
Navarro
47,070
43,374
26,373
21,702
8,879
5,996
Nolan
11,999
2,61I
1,573
640
Palo Pinto
19,506
12,29I
8,320
5,885
1,524
Parker
26,33I
25,823
21,682
15,870
4,186
4,213
Pecos
2,07I
2,360
1,326
1,807
. .
..
..
. .
.....
Reeves
4,392
1,847
1,247
22,383
9,990
4,997
Runnels
20,858
5,379
3,193
980
1,425
913
Scurry
10,924
4,158
1,415
I02
Shackelford
4,201
2,461
2,012
2,037
455
44
Somervell
3,931
3.498
3,419
2,649
Stephens
7,980
6,466
4,926
4,725
330
230
Sterling
1,493 .
1,127
. ...
Tarrant
108,572
52,376
41,142
24,671
5,788
6,020
Taylor
26,293
10,499
6,957
1,736
Tom Green
17,882
6,804
5,152
3,615
Upton
50I
48
52
Ward
2,289
1,45I
77
Williamson
42,228
38,072
25,909
15,155
6,368
4,529
Winkler
442
60
18
....
In this area these counties show a decrease of population during the last decade :
Per cent.
Milam
7.3
Robertson
12.4
Llano
10.7
..
.....
Robertson
27,454
31,480
26,506
San Saba
11,245
7,569
6,641
5,324
....
.....
.....
...
.....
Reagan
392
. .
201
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
The following counties of the central region show a percentage of in- crease less than that of the whole state (27.8 per cent) :
Per cent.
Per cent.
Bell
8.0
Bosque
9.3
Williamson
10.9
Hamilton
13.2
Falls
6.9
Mills
23.4
Limestone
6.3
Johnson
1.9
Burnet
2.0
Somervell
12.3
Mason
2.0
Hood
9.4
McLennan
22.5
Erath
7.1
Coryell
1.9
Comanche
18.1
Lampasas
10.5
Parker
2.0
Navarro
8.5
Stephens
23.4
Hill
13.1
The counties, all lying west of the above, that have grown more rap- idly than the whole state but have added less than 50 per cent to the figures for 1900 are :
Per cent.
Per cent.
San Saba
47.2
Eastland
36.0
Menard
34.6
Callahan
47.9
Brown
43.2
Sterling 31.6
The population of the following counties has nearly doubled in the last decade, increasing between 50 and 100 per cent :
Per cent.
Per cent.
Palo Pinto
58.7
Coke
84.3
Shackelford
70.7
Irion
51.3
Borden
79.9
Ward
57.7
Those countries whose increase has been more than double are princi- pally in the region where new railroads have been built or where the former cattle ranges have been occupied by farmers, all in west Texas. The exception is Tarrant county, with an increase of 107.3-per cent, due, however, to the remarkable growth of its central city. The other counties in this class are as follows :
202
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Per cent.
Per cent.
McCulloch
238.5
Howard
251.3
Coleman
114.5
Upton
943.8
Concho
366.4
Midland
989.7
Runnels
287.7
Martin
366.6
Taylor
150.4
Dawson
618.7
Jones
244-5
Crane
549.0
Tom Green
162.8
Ector
209.2
Nolan
359-5
Andrews
1,020.7
Fisher
239.7
Gaines
2,181.8
Mitchell
213.7
Winkler
636.8
Scurry
162.7
Loving
654.5
Glasscock
300.0
Reeves
137.3
THE LIVE STOCK INDUSTRY.
There occurs nowhere in literature a happier description of the posi- tion of the range cattle business in the history of our country than in the following terse and characteristically vivid words, of Alfred H. Lewis:
"With a civilized people extending themselves over new lands, cat- tle form ever the advance guard. Then come the farms. This is the procession of a civilized, peaceful invasion ; thus is the column marshaled. First, the pastoral; next, the agricultural; third and last, the manufac- turing ;- and per consequence, the big cities, where the treasure chests of a race are kept. Blood and bone and muscle and heart are to the front ; and the money that steadies and stays and protects and repays them and their efforts, to the rear. Forty years ago about all that took place west of the Mississippi of a money-making character was born of cattle. The cattle were worked in huge herds and, like the buffalo sup- planted by them, roamed in unnumbered thousands. Cattle find a natural theatre of existence on the plains. There, likewise, flourishes the pas- toral man, But cattle herding, confined to the plains, gives way before the westward creep of agriculture. Each year beholds more western acres broken by the plough ; each year witnesses a diminution of the cat- tle ranges and cattle herding. This need ring no bell of alarm concern- ing a future barren of a beef supply. More cattle are the product of the farm regions than of the ranges. That ground, once range and now farm, raises more cattle now than then. Texas is a great cattle state. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri are first states of agriculture. The area of Texas is about even with the collected area of the other five. Yet one finds double the number of cattle in Ohio, Indiana, Illi- nois, Iowa and Missouri than in Texas, to say nothing of ten-fold the sheep and hogs. But while the farms in their westward pushing do not diminish the cattle, they reduce the cattleman and pinch off much that is romantic and picturesque. Between the farm and the wire fence.
203
204
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
the cowboy, as once he flourished, has been modified, subdued, and made partially to disappear."
Perhaps it is unnecessary to repeat the well known aphorism that the welfare of a state rests upon the basic art of agriculture. With the realization of the proper possibilities of agriculture in the western coun- ties and the extension of railroads and a farming population into those regions, has resulted the development of a splendid empire which it is the province of this work to describe. The range stock industry naturally rested upon the surface, was not anchored in the soil, and, like the picturesque "tumbleweed" of the plains, it was moved hither and thither by the natural influences of the seasons and topography. While the vast ranges were free, when nature without effort provided her native grasses, the stockman could herd his cattle on the free pastures and, on similar terms with the gold miner, could reap the profits produced by nature's own bounty. For twenty years West Texas has been under- going the changes incident to the forward march of agriculture and the breaking up of the free range, and the range cattle industry is now prac- tically a thing of the past. Modern stock farming, which is still the main source of wealth in West Texas, is a very different business from the range industry, which forms the principal subject of this chapter. The range industry preceded the railroad epoch and in a sense was hostile to the approach of civilization; the modern live-stock ranching is co- efficient with the tilling of the soil, and both are phases of the present era of industrialism.
The settlers who came in from the border states during the forties and fifties, bringing with them at least a small capital of live stock, car- ried on their farming and stock raising in co-operation. There is no definite time to be set when the stock industry became independent of farming and was engaged in as a great enterprise requiring altogether different methods of management.
In the early years there was little market for cattle outside of supply- ing the local demand, and therefore no special incentive to engage in a business which in its palmy days depended altogether on the eastern mar- kets. It has been well said that the world had to be educated to eat beef, and it is only as a great want has arisen through that process of dietary training that the supplying of the world with fresh beef has become one of the largest and most systematically organized industries. A writer in describing the region about Fort Belknap and Camp Cooper about 1847 states that cattle were raised in considerable numbers in that vicinity, but that the only market was afforded by the Indian agency and the mili-
205
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
tary post, the prices which he quoted per head being, according to mod- ern standards, ridiculously low. New Orleans was the principal cattle market before the war, but it is not likely that any large number of West Texas cattle found their way thither.
In view of the fact that the movement of cattle to market has so gen- erally taken an easterly direction, the west supplying the east with meat, it is an interesting piece of information that during the years immedi- ately following the great gold discovery in California, thousands of beef cattle were driven from Texas and Mississippi valley points across the plains to feed the hordes of gold seekers and the population that followed in their wake. During the brief period of the existence of this demand many herds passed through El Paso, encountering the frightful difficul- ties of the trail and the worse dangers from the Indians, and seldom did a party on this long drive escape the attack of Indians, and, too often, the loss of most of their stock.
Although the range cattle business had attained sufficient importance by the middle of the century to give Texas a reputation as a great cattle state, the operations were still confined to the eastern and southern parts of the state. The driving of cattle to the northern markets, which until less than twenty years ago was the most picturesque feature of the Texas cattle business, was inaugurated about 1856, when several large herds were trailed into Missouri, some being taken to the St. Louis markets. During the remaining years before the war, St. Louis and Memphis re- ceived large quantities of Texas cattle, most of them from the northeast- ern part of the state.
The commencement of hostilities broke all commercial relations be- tween the North and the South. The drives across the country stopped while the blockade of the gulf ports ended exportation to foreign markets. Before the capture of Vicksburg in 1863 and the interposing of that river as a federal barrier between the east and the west Confederacy, there had been only a moderate demand for Texas cattle in the states east of the Mississippi, and as, in the latter half of the war food supplies of all kinds became scarcer, so also to transport them from the west through the fed- eral lines became an increasingly difficult task.
The paralysis of the cattle business during the war was coincident with that which befell all other activities. Not only were the avenues of trade blocked, but also the former active participants in the business were now for the most part in the service of their country as soldiers. De- structive drouths were also a feature of this period, and all conditions seemed to conjoin in throttling the life out of the young industry of
206
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
stock raising. These conditions caused at least one very noteworthy con- sequence. By stress of circumstances many stock owners had been com- pelled to abandon their herds, and from lack of sufficient guarding many cattle had wandered away from their regular range. At the close of the war therefore many thousands of half-wild range cattle were shifting for themselves in the remote districts. Incursions of Indian and wild beast had made them almost intractable and had increased the qualities of rangi- ness and nimbleness of hoof to a point where they were more than ever able to take care of themselves. When settled conditions once more came upon the country, it is said that more than one poor but enterprising cowman got his start by rounding up and branding these "mavericks,"* and from the herd thus acquired built up a business equal to that of many who in the beginning had been more fortunately circumstanced.
The revival of the cattle business after the close of the war was swifter than that which followed in other industries; and perhaps for the reason based upon facts already presented : Given a good range on the one hand and an attractive market on the other, the principal conditions of a prosperous range stock business are satisfied and the industry will spring into large proportions in a short time. The reopening of the mar- kets of the North for southern cattle, and the fact that war-time prices for beef prevailed in those markets for some time after the war, gave a de- cided impetus to Texas stock-raising. To supply this northern demand a large number of cattle were collected in the spring of 1866 and driven across the Red river to principal shipping points. The Dallas Herald in April of that year estimates that from twelve to fifteen thousand beef
* Edward King gives this version of the Maverick story: "Colonel Maverick, an old and wealthy citizen of San Antonio, once placed a small herd of cattle on an island in Matagorda bay, and having too many other things to think of, soon forgot all about them. After a lapse of several years some fishermen sent the Colonel word that his cattle had increased alarmingly, and that there was not enough grass on the island to maintain them. So he sent men to bring them off. There is probably nothing more sublimely awful in the whole history of cattle- raising than the story of those beasts, from the time they were driven from the island until they were scattered to the four corners of western Texas. Among these Matagordian cattle which had run wild for years were eight hundred noble and ferocious bulls; and wherever they went they found the country vacant before them. It was as if a menagerie of lions had broken loose in a village. Mr. Maverick never succeeded in keeping any of the herd together; they all ran madly whenever a man came in sight; and for many a day after, whenever any unbranded and unusually wild cattle were seen about the ranges they were called ' Mavericks. ' "
207
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
cattle had crossed the Trinity within the past month or six weeks, bound for the North.
The general quality of these herds was greatly inferior even to the general run of the old-time "Texas longhorn." In fact, many of the cattle driven north in 1866 were recruited from the herds of wild cattle then wandering in great numbers over the state. The presence of these wild animals in the drove gave the cowboys no end of trouble, for the least untoward event would set the suspicious brutes on the stampede, every such occasion meaning the loss of hundreds of dollars to the owner of the herd. Then, there were other gauntlets of danger and difficulty to be run by these drovers. The "Texas fever" was the bete noir of cattle- men, not so much because of the actual destruction wrought among the cattle by the disease, as by the general apprehension excited in the public mind that all Texas beef was fever-tainted and that Texas cattle were carriers of the disease among northern stock, all this operating for some time as an almost effectual bar against the sale of cattle from south of the Red river. To resist this invasion of disease, some of the inhabitants of Kansas and Missouri whose farms were along the general route of the Texas drives took exceedingly rigorous methods of stopping the passage of Texas drovers through their neighborhoods. Instances are known in which Texans were severely punished by lashing or other maltreatment and their cattle scattered through the woods and ravines beyond all hope of recovery. Originating in an honest desire to protect their live stock against imported disease, this hostility to Texas cattlemen became a cloak for the operations of gangs of blackmailers and outlaws such as would put to shame the banditti of the middle ages. Says one who wrote of that period from knowledge at first hand: "The bright visions of great profits and sudden wealth that had shimmered before the imagination of the drover were shocked, if not blasted, by the unexpected reception given him in southern Kansas and Missouri by a determined, organized, armed mob, more lawless, insolent and imperious than a band of wild savages. Could the prairies of southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri talk, they could tell many a thrilling, blood-curdling story of carnage, wrong, out- rage, robbery and revenge, not excelled in the history of any banditti or the annals of the most bloody savages." It became necessary for the drovers to avoid these danger-infested regions, and instead of going di- rectly to the nearest shipping point-which was then Sedalia, Mo .- they detoured to the north or the south, reaching the railroad either at St. Jo- seph or at St. Louis.
The prejudices against Texas cattle and the dangers of the trail
208
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
gradually subsided, though not till many a cattleman had gone bankrupt or suffered worse injury. In 1867, however, a new status was given the cattle traffic. Up to that time the Missouri river had furnished the near- est and most convenient shipping points for the Texas cattleman, and the trails thither were long and, as we have seen, often dangerous. It was to relieve these conditions that, in the year 1867, Joseph G. McCoy se- lected, along the route of the newly built Kansas Pacific Railroad, the embryo town and station of Abilene as the point to which all the cattle trails from the south and southwest should converge and disgorge the long-traveled herds into waiting cars, thence to be hurried away over the steel rails to the abattoirs and packing houses of the East. Abilene was no more than a name at the time, and McCoy and his assistants set about the building of immense cattle pens and the equipments essential to a shipping point. These were completed in time for the fall drive, and Abi- lene was thus launched upon its famous and infamous career as "the wick- edest and most God-forsaken place on the continent," a detailed descrip- tion of which is, happily, no part of this history.
By proper advertising of its advantages as the nearest and most con- venient railroad station for Texas shippers, by the year following its es- tablishment all the trail-herds were pointed toward Abilene as their desti- nation. There the buyers would meet the drovers, who, having disposed of their cattle to best advantage, would usually turn their steps to the flaunting dens that offered iniquity in every conceivable earthly form. It is estimated that 75,000 Texan cattle were marketed at Abilene in 1868, and in the following year twice that number.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.