A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 24

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968

USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 24

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character was born of cattle. The cattle were worked in huge herds and, like the buffalo sup- planted by them, roamed in unnumbered thou- sands. Cattle find a natural theater of existence on the plains. There, likewise, flourishes the pastoral 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 plow; each year witnesses a diminution of the cattle ranges and cattle herd- ing. This need ring no bell of alarm concerning 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, Illinois, 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 cattlemen and pinch off much that is romantic and picturesque. Between the farm and the wire fence, the cowboy, as once he flourished, has been modified, subdued, and made partially to disappear."

The range cattle industry was never estab- lished in the eastern portion of Peters Colony, so that its consideration forms no important part of our history until after the Civil and Indian war period. In the many personal interviews which have furnished matter for this work, the question has been asked: "What was the prin- cipal occupation of the country dwellers during

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the early years?" "The first settlers were farm- ers," is the reply; "they usually brought with them some stock and where the pasturage was good and of broad limits, as was generally the case till after the war, cattle in considerable numbers would be raised, but only in connection with wheat and corn and other agricultural crops. The raising of live stock received about the same relative attention as it did in the states from which the settlers came."

It is of interest to note that the Black Land belt and the Cross Timbers country, comprising Grayson, Collin, Dallas, Cooke, Denton and Tar- rant counties, being the most essentially agricul- tural region of the Colony and receiving a class of settlers who depended upon farming after the manner they had been used to in their native states, not only contained the bulk of the popula- tion between the years of 1855 to 1870, but also were the only counties which were able to main- tain the permanence and integrity of their civil and industrial organization against the onslaughts of barbarism on the west and the internal drain caused by civil war. This fact is valuable as establishing the status of the purely agricultural class as contrasted with the more transient occu- pation of the range stockman. Perhaps it is un- necessary to repeat the well known aphorism that the welfare of a state rests upon the basic art of agriculture, but the truth of the ancient obser- vation is so often affirmed in the history of Northwest Texas that it bears reiteration as the. text of the entire story. With the realization of the proper possibilities of agriculture in the western counties 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 undergo- ing the changes incident to the forward march of agriculture and the breaking up of the free range, and the range cattle industry is now practically 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 pre- ceded the railroad epoch and in a sense was hos- tile to the approach of civilization ; the modern live stock ranching is coefficient 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, carried 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 man- agement. But, as hinted above, the beginning of the range stock business seems to correspond quite closely with the extension of the settle- ments beyond the Black Land belt and the Cross Timbers country, into that region of North Texas which has so long been esteemed as the grazing paradise.

In the early years there was little market for cattle outside of supplying the local demand, and therefore no special incentive to engage in a business which in its palmy days depended alto- gether on the eastern markets. 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 be- come one of the largest and most systematically organized industries. A writer, elsewhere quoted, in describing the region about Fort Bel- knap 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 military post, the prices which he quoted per head being, according to modern standards, ridiculously low. New Or- leans was the principal cattle market before the

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war, but it is not likely that any large number of North Texas cattle found their way thither.

In view of the fact that the movement of cattle to market has so generally taken an easterly di- rection, the west supplying the east with meat, it is an interesting piece of information that dur- ing the years immediately 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 ex- istence of this demand many herds passed through El Paso, encountering the frightful difficulties 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 at- tained 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 pic- turesque 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 northeastern part of the state.

The commencement of hostilities broke all commercial relations between the north and the south. The drives across the country stopped, while the blockade of the gulf ports ended ex- portation 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 federal lines became an increasingly difficult task. We have already referred to Wise county sending large supplies of beef cattle to the Confederate armies, and the other counties

of North Texas were not behindhand in support- ing the cause by such contributions. Without giving any question to the loyalty of its owners, much live stock in North Texas also went to feed the northern armies. With the probable conniv- ance of the federal authorities, many Indian bands and "jayhawkers" made a business of raid- ing the herds in the northern counties and driv- ing them across the Red river, where they would find ready sale in the Union camps.

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 partici- pants 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 stock-raising. These conditions caused at least one very noteworthy consequence. 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 ranginess and nimble- ness 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 at- tractive market on the other, the principal con- ditions of a prosperous range stock business are satisfied and the industry will spring into large proportions in a short time. The reopening of

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the markets 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 decided 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 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 cattlemen, not so much because of the actual destruction wrought among the cattle by the disease, as by the general apprehen- sion 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 effect- ual 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 meth- ods 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 cat- tle scattered through the woods and ravines be- yond all hope of recovery. Originating in an honest desire to protect their live stock against imported disease, this hostility to Texas cattle- men 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, outrage, 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 in- stead of going directly to the nearest shipping point-which was then Sedalia, Mo .- they de- toured to the north or the south, reaching the railroad either at St. Joseph or at St. Louis.

The prejudices against Texas cattle and the dangers of the trail 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 nearest and most convenient shipping points for the Tex- as 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 selected, 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 as- sistants 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 Abilene was thus launched upon its famous and infamous career as "the wickedest and most God-forsaken place on the continent"; a detailed description of which is, happily, no part of this history.

By proper advertising of its advantages as the nearest and most convenient railroad station for Texas shippers, by the year following its estab-

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lishment all the trail-herds were pointed toward Abilene as their destination. 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 in- iquity 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.

As is well known, the Texas "long-horn" of those days had characteristics of figure, propor- tion and disposition which were of equal fame with his value as beef. Texas fever or almost any evil imputation could more easily lodge against this animal than against the more sleek and docile-appearing "farmer cattle," so that it is not strange that on the cattle exchanges "Tex- ans" were usually quoted distinct and at marked disparity of price compared with those brought by other grades. The process of grading which worked out from Texas herds this long-horn breed was a long time in accomplishment, and in time practically covers the epoch of the range cattle industry as distinct from modern cattle ranching. Though the Texan cattle thus labored against adverse influences, both at the hands of the buyer and of the consumer, none the less the range business, both through the profits to be derived and through the nature of the enterprise, attracted thousands of energetic men to its pur- suit as long as the conditions necessary to its con- tinuance existed.

With the increased facilities for marketing caused by the opening of the Abilene shipping station, there followed a noticeable immigration movement in West Texas. These regions had, as long as abundant pasturage remained in the cen- tral and southwestern portions of the state, been looked upon with considerable disfavor by stock- men who shared the historic belief that the plains region was a semi-desert and little capable of supporting animal life. A stockman who trav- eled through Tom Green and Taylor counties in 1867, when that region had but a handful of res- idents, reported that the grass was from one to three feet high everywhere, that it had plenty of water, and was capable of supporting from 250 to 300 head of cattle to the square mile. Thus the

fear of Indian depredation and of unfavorable conditions gradually gave way, and stockmen were soon filling up the region of the plains country as eagerly as other parts of the state.

Among those who sought their fortunes on the plains soon after the war was W. D. Reynolds, the well known capitalist and cattleman of Fort Worth. His father, B. W. Reynolds, came to Palo Pinto county in the fifties, and the out- break of the Civil War found the family on the very verge of civilization. William D., then a boy of fourteen, but bred with the frontiersman's versatility and hardihood, joined the Ranger serv- ice and scouted and fought the Indians in the almost vain attempt to beat back the forces of barbarism. Then in September, 1867, he went upon the trail in the employ of Loving and Good- night, and in the following spring he and his brother George entered upon a partnership which has been maintained to the present time. Their headquarters were located in Shackelford county on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, and for nearly forty years this has been the principal theater of their cattle operations in North Texas, al- though they have had other ranches as far north as Dakota. With regard to the conditions in West Texas, Mr. Reynolds is quoted as saying : "When I first came upon the range we never thought of land being worth anything. After- wards the great pastures were fenced, and we were assured that West Texas and the Panhandle would always be a range country, as Providence had so ordained it. Along came the farmer, and we found that we had a farming country. Now it is known that a man with a family can live well and make money on four sections of land, with the result that land is selling at five dollars an acre and values are advancing."

Just one other personal mention at this point will suffice. Charles Goodnight, of Goodnight, Texas, now nearly seventy years of age, fifty years of which time has been spent in the cattle industry, began the range cattle business in 1856 in Palo Pinto county, and though experiencing all the losses by Indian raid and drouth and breaking of the market which were incident to the business before and during the war, he saw too clearly the splendid possibilities of the enter-

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prise to abandon its prosecution when more favorable times came. He made many cattle drives after the war to Fort Sumner, to the north- ern markets and to the ranges of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, and for some years after 1868 had his headquarters in southern Colorado. In 1876 Mr. Goodnight transferred his cattle op- erations to Palo Duro canyon, in the most pic- turesque region of the Panhandle. He had to dispute the possession of the canyon with the Indians, who had for years considered it one of their safest camping grounds. He was perhaps the first cattleman to penetrate what has since become one of the strongholds of the cattle busi- ness, and the operations of Charles Goodnight have given him a foremost place .in this class of Texans. In connection with what is said in this history concerning the buffalo, it is of interest that the Goodnight ranch contains the only herd of buffaloes in Texas, and one of only three or four in the United States. He has sixty full- blooded animals, and has given much attention to the preservation of this noble species.

The decade of the seventies was marked with many developments in the cattle industry. Prices were up, the demand for cattle from Texas was not so critical, and it is estimated that 300,000 head were driven out of the state to Kansas points in the year 1870. Another factor that made the cattle traffic for that year profitable was a "freight war" between the trunk lines reaching to the Atlantic, the reduction in freight rates sim- ply adding so much extra profit to the cattle ship- per.

In 1871, as a consequence of the prosperity of the preceding year, the trails leading to the north were thronged with cattle, and the constant clouds of dust that hung daily along the trail, the ponderous tread of countless hoofs, and the tossing, glistening current of long-horns, present- ed a spectacle the like of which will never be seen again. Six hundred thousand head of Texas cat- tle went into Kansas in 1871, and these numbers were swelled by contributions from the other range states. But the drovers were not met by the eager buyers of the year before ; corn-fed beef from the middle states had already partly satis- fied the market ; the economic and financial con-

ditions of the country were not so good as in the year before; railroad rates were again normal --- and as a result half of the Texas drive had to be turned onto the winter range in Kansas. A rig- orous winter, with much snow following, and much of the pasturage having already been close- cropped, thousands of cattle perished, and the year goes down in Texas cattle history as almost calamitous.

About this time the railroads were extending their lines to absorb the increasing cattle traffic, and several roads penetrating the cattle regions caused a change of base with regard to the move- ments of cattle. The Santa Fe reached the Colo- rado line late in 1872, and about the same time the M., K. & T. reached the Red river, furnishing a shipping point for Texas cattle at Denison. With the year 1872 the town of Abilene begins to lose its lurid reputation, its business advan- tages as well as its sins being transferred to other railroad points; the extension of the railroads had much to do with this, but in the winter of 1871-72 there had also been a determined revolt on the part of the better element of citizenship, with the result that Abilene became a compara- tively "straight" town, and what it lost as a cattle center was recompensed by substantial business prosperity.

The year 1872 saw only about half the number of cattle in the preceding year driven north, al- though better prices prevailed and the average quality of the stock was better. About this time Texas stockmen began the practice of transfer- ring their cattle to the northern ranges for fat- tening, a method which soon became one of the important features of the business.

Practically all the activities of North Texas came to an abrupt pause as a result of the panic of 1873, and the cattle business, being more "im- mediate" in its workings, suffered more severely than others. The pall of depression hung over the business world even before the colossal failure of Jay Cooke in September, so that the 400,000 Texas cattle that were driven north found the buyers apathetic to say the least. Many held off for better prices in the fall, only to be met with overwhelming disappointment when the crash came. Naturally, the range cattle fared worse

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in competition with the farm cattle, which was nearly equal to the market demand. Everywhere there was over-supply and glutting of the mar- kets. Many Texans were in debt for money ad- vanced by banks in preceding seasons, and as no extensions of credit could be made there were hundreds of enterprising cowmen in Texas in that year who faced complete defeat, although Texas pluck and persistence saved them from an- nihilation. To such straits did the business come in that year that a considerable proportion of the cattle were sold to rendering plants, which were set up in various parts of the state as a direct re- sult of the depression ; the hides, horns, hoofs and tallow were more profitable for a time than the beef. Conditions warranted these operations only a short time, and since then there has been no slaughtering of range cattle as a business propo- sition merely for the byproducts.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 24

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co. Number of Pages: 968

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968