USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 21
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ding the slow road to prosperity. As one miraculous cure will establish: the world-wide fame of a relic which thousands of other worshipers have adored in vain, likewise a few examples of success in cattle ranching gave dazzling promise to all who would undertake its pursuit. The glowing reports of the western cattle industry that found current in all parts of the world resulted in a large immigration to the range country, and the mania for investment in cattle and for booming every department of the business stimulated a false prosperity that could have but one end. Values rose beyond all precedent, and those who marketed their stock during the first two or three years of the "boom" realized profits that, had they then withdrawn from the business, would have left them well within the realms of wealth. But the contagion of the enterprise seemed to infect the experienced cattleman as well as the tyro. The season's drive ended, the accruing profits were reinvested, and thus the bubble expanded till it burst.
To properly understand the culmination of the conditions which brought the range cattle industry to its climax in the '8os, it is necessary to go back to the origin of the industry and state the "rules of the game" which had obained as unwritten law as long as free range lasted.
"For a decade or two after the close of the Civil war the range coun- try of Texas was open and free to whosoever might go in and occupy parts of it and nature provided food for the cattle without labor, without money and without price from their owners. The cattlemen of that period thought they 'had struck it rich,' as indeed they had, so far as free grass and a range that appeared to be unlimited and inexhaustible could help them on to fortune. They had also thought that they had a perpetual possession in which these conditions would continue, but little, if any, disturbed, and that their business would go on indefinitely independent of most of the trammels and restraints to which men were subject in the settled parts .of the country. The country appeared so endlessly big and its grazing resources seemed so great that it was hard for any man to foresee its 'crowded' occupation by range cattle far within the period of his own lifetime, to say nothing of serious encroachments upon it by tillers of the soil. In these years the methods and practices of the western stockmen as they advanced into the range country were much the same wherever they went.
"The first impulse of a pioneer cattleman who had entered a virgin district with his herd and established his headquarters there, was mentally to claim everything within sight and for a long distance beyond. But when the second one appeared with his stock the two would divide the
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district, and each keep on his side of the division line as agreed upon. As others came in, the district would be still further divided, until, ac- cording to the very broad views our pioneer friends held as to the length and breadth of land each should have for 'elbow room,' it had become fully occupied. There was nothing to prevent them from appropriating the country in this manner and arbitrarily defining the boundaries of their respective ranges, and with this practice there developed the theory of 'range rights'-that is, of a man's right to his range in consequence of priority of occupation and continuous possession, although none asserted actual ownership of the range land, nor did any of them really own as much as a square yard of it. Still, under the circumstances, the theory of 'range rights' was not an unreasonable proposition.
"For a district to become 'fully occupied' did not at that time imply that the cattle outfits in it were near neighbors. In making claim to a range each stockman kept far over on the safe side by taking to himself a-plenty, and therefore their ranch buildings were anywhere from fifteen to thirty miles apart, and sometimes even farther. As a common rule each man recognized and respected the range rights of his neighbors in good faith, but occasionally there were conflicts."*
Such were the conditions up to the time of the boom. Then, in con- sequence of the immigration of farmers and the many new aspirants for success in the range business, the old cattlemen became generally appre- hensive for the future of their business. It seemed that even the vast range country, much of which, indeed, has since been proved agricul- turally valuable, might at no distant day be filled up by the land-owning, fence-building and generally troublesome farmer, not to mention the re- strictions of range freedom that were being set by the greater numbers of cattlemen. Therefore the majority decided to make their shortening days of grace strenuous ones, and to this end began the practice of stocking their ranges to the very limit. Where the long-horn had hitherto grazed the grass from twenty-five or more acres, he was now often limited to ten. This practice of overstocking the ranges became increasingly general, and the several inevitable results were not long in precipitating widespread calamity.
The practice led first of all to an abnormal demand for stock cattle. Prices quickly rose from $7 to $8 a head to $10 and $12, and large ship- ments were even sent from the middle states to form the basis for the range herds. Of course this inflation of values deepened the veneer of
* "Prose and Poetry of Cattle Industry."
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prosperity which gilded the entire business and increased the recklessness of those who hoped to catch the golden bubble before it burst. The beef- cattle market continued strong. Some Texas "grass-fed" steers selling in Chicago in May, 1882, at $6.80 a hundred, and upwards of $6 being offered in the corresponding month of the next year. But the ranges were not capable of supporting the great herds of hungry cattle that cropped their grasses so close and in many cases so trampled them that their pro- ductiveness was permanently impaired. A rainy season and an open winter alone could maintain the cattle industry at the high pressure at which it was being driven, and those conditions could not be depended upon. In the hard winter of 1882-83 cattle died by the thousands, and those that were not ruined by nature's penalties did not have long to wait for the economic overthrow. Prices for market stock remained high throughout 1883 and the early months of 1884, but in the fall of that year the decline began and by the middle of 1885 range cattle sold high at ten dollars a head and thousands went for less. The delusive value of "range rights" and "free grass," so often estimated as assets, could not be realized on, and the unfortunate stockmen found the returns from their herds to give them a mere pittance compared with the original invest- ments. A case is recorded in which a Texas cattleman, who in 1883 had refused $1,500,000 for his cattle, ranch outfit and range rights, sold them all in 1886 for $245,000.
With the collapse of the great boom of the eighties, it may be said that the doom of the range-cattle industry was sounded, and since then a complete rearrangement has been taking place by which modern condi- tions have been ushered in. The fiction of "range rights" gave place to the purchase outright or the leasing of tracts of range land. The intro- duction of wire fences into general use set definite boundaries to each cattleman's possessions and largely did away with the "open range." Railroads went west and south, and were intersected by cross lines, which, more than any other influence, caused the breaking up of the range into ranches and stock farms. The improvement of the grades of cattle, and the gradual elimination of the long-horns, the beginnings of which we have already noted, have been steadily working the transformation which is now so complete that only the older stockmen have any knowledge of the conditions that we have just described. The stock industry is now a business, almost a science, and is conducted along the same systematic lines with other departments of modern industrialism. Cattlemen no longer pursue their calling outside the borders of the permanent settle- ments, receding before the whistle of the locomotive; they build their
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ranch houses along the lines of steel, and their industry has become an organic factor in the world's activities.
During the sixties and early seventies Mr. J. F. Glidden, at his home in DeKalb, Illinois, had been conducting the experiments which resulted in the production of barb-wire, and it is worth while to turn aside and give in some detail the history of the invention which has meant so much in Texas. The first patent covering his invention was secured and bore date November 24, 1874. Smooth wire had already been used to a con- siderable extent for fencing purposes. It was cheap and answered the purpose to a certain extent, but it was by no means proof against cattle, and in consequence smooth-wire fences were constantly in need of repair. It was while replacing wires that had been torn from the posts by cattle that Mr. Glidden noticed some staples hanging to the wires, and from this conceived the idea of attaching barbs or points firmly to the wire at reg- ular intervals, in this way preventing cattle from exerting pressure on the fence. It was at first only an idea, and there were many things to over- come in perfecting it, but it continued prominent in Mr. Glidden's mind, and after considerable thought he began experiments in perfecting a style of barb and firmly attaching it to the wire. He made his first perfected coil barb by the use of an old-fashioned coffee mill, of which he turned the crank by hand. Later on he devised better and more substantial ma- chinery for this purpose, and would then string a number of barbs on a wire, placing them at regular intervals, and laying another wire without barb by its side, twist the two together by the use of an old horse-power. Thus by the twisting of the wires the barbs were permanently held in place, and the result obtained in this primitive way was sufficiently satis- factory to convince him of the ultimate success of his invention. In the fall of 1874 Mr. Glidden gave, for a nominal sum, a half interest in his patent to Mr. I. L. Ellwood, of. DeKalb, and a factory was erected in that city for the manufacture of the new wire. Machinery was designed with which the barbs were attached to a single wire and then a smooth wire twisted with it, to a length of 150 feet ; this length was then wound on a reel and the process continued until the reel was filled. Soon afterward a machine was made which coiled the barbs upon one wire, twisted them together and wound the finished wire upon the reels ready for shipment, each machine having a capacity of twenty reels daily.
Such was the inventing and manufacturing side of it. But, as has been the case again and again in the history of machinery, a really excel- lent device may be lost to the world because sufficient aggressiveness has not been employed in its introduction to the public. The man selected by
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Mr. Glidden to show up the merits of his barb-wire was Mr. Henry B. Sanborn (now one of the best known cattlemen of Texas, the founder of Amarillo in the Panhandle). The latter was already prosperously started in business with Mr. Warner, and it required a great deal of persistent urging on the part of the inventor to get him to enter upon this new enterprise. However, he finally became convinced of its worth and possi- bilities and he and his partner made a contract with Glidden & Ellwood by which Sanborn and Warner were, for a period of two years, to intro- duce and sell exclusively the entire barb-wire product of the factory. Late in the fall of 1874 Mr. Sanborn started out with a sample panel of barb- wire fence to introduce the invention to the hardware trade, first in the towns adjacent to DeKalb. Conservatism, if not prejudice, worked against the first sale of this article, only two or three reels being sold at Rochelle, Illinois, and some small orders coming during the following months. In the spring of 1875 Mr. Sanborn and Mr. Warner both set out to introduce the wire into the southwestern and western states, where its field of greatest usefulness lay. In the meantime a half interest in the DeKalb plant was transferred to the well known wire manufacturers, Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company of Worcester, Massachu- setts, the contract with Sanborn and Warner being reaffirmed by the new partnership.
In September, 1875, Mr. Sanborn made his first invasion of Texas territory in the interest of the barb-wire industry. He soon found out that fencing material was much needed in this great cattle country, but the prejudice against the use of barb-wire seemed to be very strong. As a sample of the objections, one large cattle owner told Mr. Sanborn that the barb-wire fence would never do; that the cattle would run into it and cut themselves, thus causing endless trouble from the screw worm, which invariably attacks cattle in Texas when blood is drawn. But Mr. Sanborn was proof against all such discouraging sentiments, and he knew that, once get a wedge of sales entered, the entire people would be in time brought over to the new fence. He had a carload of the wire shipped to various points in the state, had Mr. Warner to come on and help him, and then took the field in the country for the purpose of introducing it to the actual consumers. At Gainesville he sold the first ten reels of barb-wire ever sold in the state. Thence he went to other towns, and during a trip of eleven days in a buggy he sold sixty reels; Mr. Warner was at the same time in the country west of Dallas and selling as much or more. At Austin Mr. Warner sold to a firm of ranchmen for their own use the first carload sold to consumers. The aggressive work of the partners soon
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introduced the invention to many towns and outlying districts, and after a month or so of effective drumming and advertising they returned to the north. In January, 1877, they made a new contract with Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company for the exclusive sale of the Glidden barb- wire in the state of Texas, and established their office and headquarters at Houston.
By this time barb-wire had reached the importance of an issne among the people of Texas. Its sincere friends were many and daily increasing, but many more from self-interest as well as conservatism opposed it most vehemently. The lumbermen were unfavorable because its introduction would mean a decrease of the use of wood material for fencing purposes, and the railroads allied themselves with the lumbermen whose shipments would thereby be diminished. Injury to stock was common ground for opposition, and bills were even introduced into the legislature prohibiting its use, but happily a rallying of the friends of barb-wire defeated the inimical measures, and the entire agitation worked for the welfare of the wire fence movement. In a few years the barb-wire sales of Sanborn and Warner in this state ran well up toward the million dollar mark. Messrs. Sanborn and Warner continued their partnership until 1883, when the former purchased the latter's interest, the name of Sanborn and Warner, however, being still retained. The contract with the Washburn and Moen Company continued until the expiration of the original Glidden patent in 1891, since which time the company has continued its Texas business from their branch office at Houston. Long before this, however, the work of introduction, so thoroughly undertaken by Mr. Sanborn, was complete and the trade built up to a steady and permanent demand.
Light on the troubles between the range cattlemen, the small farmer, the fence cutters and other parties to the contest is shown by the follow- ing extracts from newspapers in the fall of 1883. The Austin Sentinel put the case in the form of a query :
"What is to be done for the man who owns 640 acres, with a little farm on it, depending on the grass on the unfenced portion for maintain- ing his 25 head of stock, while the big stock-raiser grazes his stock on the outside of his own pasture, saving the grass on the inside for the drouth or winter season, while his thousand cattle destroy every blade of grass which the man referred to depends on to keep his milch cows and work animals alive?"
"It appears to us"-the Bandera Enterprise about the same date- "that it is high time some effective steps were being taken to settle the
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troubles between the pasture men and their enemies. Consider- able blood has already been shed, and dangerous sentiments are rapidly assuming such proportions as to become a rational source of alarm for the character of our great state and peace and security of the lives and prop- erty of her citizens. We think the offering of a reward of $30 by the governor for the arrest and conviction of the fence cutters is totally inadequate to meet the emergencies of the case."
The principal factors that brought the cattle industry to its present orderly and substantial basis were, improved stock, provident manage- ment, and individual control of more or less of the land upon which each stockman operated, accompanied by the use of fences. The first attempts to introduce better blood into the rough range stock were made in Texas about 1875, although all that was done in this direction before 1885 was experimental and had little effect in raising the general grade. In fact, there was some prejudice in those days against the heavy farm cattle, which, it was believed, would not thrive under range conditions nor have the hardihood to withstand the hardships of winter and drouth. But after 1885, "a large item in the expense account of every ranchman whose operations were of considerable magnitude represented his outlay for high-grade and registered bulls, high-bred breeding stock was brought into the range country in numbers that aggregated thousands of head and that, it is no exaggeration to say, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. These bulls came not only from the stock farms of the East, but from England, Scotland, and continental Europe. Quality was bred into the herds, and the range beef steer was raised. to a high plane of excellence."
Continuing, the History of the Live Stock Industry previously re- ferred to says: "The best and therefore the high-priced beef lies along the animal's back, and anyone can understand that a broad-backed steer that has utilized its food in increasing its aggregate of sirloin and porterhouse parts, is far more valuable than the narrow-backed, slab-sided animal, perhaps of nearly the same gross weight, but which has utilized most of its food in the production of tallow. The western cattlemen saw this, and began to produce, with the same amount of food, beeves that yielded the high-priced steaks, worth from 15 to 25 cents a pound in a normal retail market, instead of tallow and medium or low-grade meats, worth whatever the buyer could be persuaded to pay for them.
"So the process of improving and upbuilding the range herds through the introduction of better stock and by selective breeding was undertaken and soon became general. The long-horn and all its kindred were rapidly eliminated. These slender, long-legged, narrow-faced, slabby, nervous
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animals, that could run like a deer, that were subject to panic whenever they saw a man not on horseback, and that had horns reaching far out from their heads, within a few years practically became extinct creatures. Their places became more than filled by broad-backed, thick-loined, wide- shouldered cattle that in many instances yielded the largest possible amount of beef from the least possible amount of food, that topped the market, and that were as easy to manage as so many barn-yard heifers; the short-horned and the no-horned, the red-bodied and white-faced, and the black and the mixed-hued, the short-legged and the medium-legged-but all fine beefers."
Instead of depending entirely upon having their cattle "rustle" a living from the pastures the twelvemonth through, under any and all con- ditions, the stockmen began providing a reserve supply of forage with which to tide over the hard spells of weather. The pastures still remain the chief dependence, and ordinarily the stock gets along very well upon them; but the West Texas cattlemen have discovered that the soil will produce more than the native grasses. With the breaking up of the ranges, some portion of each ranch is devoted to the production of Kaffir corn, milo maize, and other non-saccharine sorghum plants, with which the cattle are fattened at home, instead of the old way of driving them from the range to the northern feeding grounds. Instead of being left standing till the cattle cropped them, the tall and succulent grasses are now cut with mowing machines and stacked for the winter's use. Fur- thermore, the modern stockman will not hesitate to import winter feed for his cattle, although such providence in caring for the stock would have been considered folly by the old-timers in the business.
Ranch management in all its details is being systematized. Instead of driving his herds from place to place in search of grass and water, the cattleman of to-day is fencing in small areas, driving wells and building dams and reservoirs, and raising the food for his cattle, feeding them with his own hands, watering them and looking after them closely, which would have been considered absurd and effeminate a few years ago. The "water holes" and surface streams that formerly furnished all the water for stock are now supplemented by wells. Twenty-five years ago the average cattleman would have ridiculed the idea that he was driving his herds over a vast lake of pure water or that it would be easier to tap the supply and draw it to the surface than to continue to drive his cattle to a stagnant pool ten miles away. But the underground lake exists, as the plainsman finally realized, and he has since been working out the prob-
Vol. I-15
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lem of getting the water to the surface. For this purpose windmills have been generally employed, and the traveler through the plains country finds the numerous windmills the most impressive feature of the land- scape, Midland and other towns being worthy the name of "windmill cities."
THE CATTLE RAISERS' ASSOCIATION OF TEXAS.
The Cattle Raisers' Association of Texas was organized February, 1877, at the town of Graham, Young county, Texas. Col. C. L. Carter of Palo Pinto county was elected its first president, and was elected each succeeding year, except one, to the time of his death in July, 1888. The term which he did not serve he was nominated, but requested that he be allowed to retire from his office on account of his age, and that it be filled by a younger and more active member. Col. C. C. Slaughter was elected to take his place in March, 1885, and served one year with honor to himself and satisfaction to the membership. At the annual meeting in 1886, Col. Carter was again chosen President by acclamation, without a dissenting voice, and was President when he died. Col. Carter was a pioneer cattle and frontiersman, having settled in Palo Pinto county in 1885, on the place where he died. He experienced many trials and trou- bles with hostile Indians; in addition to the heavy loss of property at the hands of these savages, he lost his oldest son, a bright and promising young man, just as he was growing into manhood, while on a cow hunt on his range. It was the good fortune of most of the older mem- bers of the association to have known Col. Carter for many years prior to his death. They are all of the opinion "that no better man ever lived or died; that he possessed many, if not all, of the qualities necessary to make a good man."
After the death of the lamented President Carter, Mr. A. P. Bush, Jr., of Colorado, Texas, was elected each year to fill the position of president up to March, 1899, which he filled with credit to himself and to the entire satisfaction of the members.
At the annual meeting in March, 1899, Mr. Bush declined to be an applicant for the position of president, and nominated Mr. R. J. Kleberg, of Alice, Texas, as his successor. Mr. Kleberg was elected without opposition, the vote being unanimous. At the annual meeting in March, 1900, R. J. Kleberg was re-elected to the office of President without opposition, and served the Association two years, the limit under the present by-laws, with honor to himself and to the satisfaction of the members. At the annual meeting in March, 1901, Mr. Murdo Mac-
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