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Wheeler County Local History |
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FORT WORTH AND DENVER NORTHERN RAILWAY The Fort Worth and Denver Northern Railway Company was chartered by the Burlington system on May 20, 1929. The road was to build from Childress north to Shamrock in Wheeler County and then northwest to Pampa in Gray County, a distance of 110 miles. The initial capital was $110,000, and the business office was in Childress. Members of the first board of directors included John A. Hulen of Houston; F. E. Williamson and C. E. Spens, both from Chicago, Illinois; and Khleber M. Van Zandt, F. E. Clarity, T. B. Yarbrough, J. H. Barwise, W. C. Logan, and W. O. Hamilton, all from Fort Worth. The 110 miles of track from Childress north to Shamrock in Wheeler County and then northwest to Pampa in Gray County was completed on July 15, 1932. The road was leased to the Fort Worth and Denver City for operation and merged into that company on June 13, 1952. The section between Wellington and Pampa was abandoned in 1970. BIG DIE-UP In the early 1880s the Panhandle and South Plains regions of West Texas were beginning to be crowded with ranchers. Before long the ranges were overstocked, and the depletion of grasses threatened the cowmen's livelihood. During the northers and blizzards of harsh Panhandle winters, cattle tended by instinct to drift southward, sometimes for over 100 miles, to seek shelter in various canyons and river valleys. Range outfits often had a hard time separating their cattle. Barbed wire fencing seemed to be an answer. Accordingly, drift fences, fences intended to keep cattle from drifting, were built. In 1882 the Panhandle Stock Association ranchers erected a drift fence that ran from the New Mexico line east through Hartley and Moore counties to the Canadian River breaks in Hutchinson County. Over the next few years more sections were added, so that by 1885 barbed wire drift fences stretched across the entire northern Panhandle, from thirty-five miles deep in New Mexico to the Indian Territory. These formed an effective barrier for northern cattle attempting to drift onto the southern ranges. Others bogged down in icy creek beds and draws. Many, caught in open areas without sufficient food, water, or shelter, either died of thirst or afterward fell victim to wolves or coyotes. When the storms dissipated in January 1886, thousands of dead cattle were found piled up against the Panhandle drift fences, and hundreds more along lesser, but similar, man-made barriers on other rangelands. The Cator brothers' Diamond C herd was almost wiped out, and others like Henry Cresswell's Bar CC and the Seven K suffered staggering losses. ROCKING CHAIR RANCH The Rocking Chair Ranche Company, Limited, as it was designated by its British owners, encompassed northeastern Collingsworth County and extended into Wheeler County. The brand that gave it its name, however, was probably first used by Noah Ellis in South Texas during the early 1860s. It came to Collingsworth County in the fall of 1879, when John and Wiley Dickerson drove 2,000 cattle from the Llano River country to Dogwood Springs, on the South Fork of Elm Creek. By 1880 the Dickersons had established their headquarters at a site located south of a range of mesas subsequently named the Rocking Chair Mountains. In 1881 A. Conkle of Kansas City and John T. Lytle of Medina County acquired the brand; they registered it at Mobeetie on September 30. By November 1882 Conkle and Lytle had a herd of 14,745 head. The Rocking Chair Ranch was, however, without a legal home until February 17, 1883, when the partners bought 235 sections of former Houston and Great Northern Railroad land from the New York and Texas Land Company. On April 3 Conkle and Lytle sold their land, brand, cattle, and horses for $365,000 to Early W. Spencer and J. John Drew, who were seeking a suitable American cattle scheme for British investors. Drew, an Englishman, returned to England to promote the new syndicate. Within five months he resold the property to the Rocking Chair Ranche Company for $26,857. The principal owner was Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, first baron of Tweedmouth; after his death in 1884 his oldest son, Edward Marjoribanks, inherited both the title and company ownership. Another major stockholder was John Campbell Hamilton Gordon, earl of Aberdeen and later governor general of Canada, who in 1887 became joint owner of the Rocking Chair Ranch with Sir Edward, his brother-in-law. By that time the investors had acquired a total of 1,600 additional acres and were leasing another 100,000 from the state. In 1889 the company laid out the town of Aberdeen as the nucleus of the ranch. John Drew, who resided with his family in Aberdeen, was appointed general manager of the enterprise, and Henry J. Nesper, who later became the first store owner and postmaster in Aberdeen, was hired as range foreman. Buck Julian trailed the first herd of Rocking Chair cattle to Dodge City in the fall of 1883. For an assistant manager and bookkeeper, the company appointed the second Baron Tweedmouth's youngest brother, Archibald John Marjoribanks, known among the cowboys as "Archie" or "Old Marshie." Uninterested in learning the fine points of ranching, Marshie drank and gambled in the Mobeetie saloons and hunted with purebred hounds. Nevertheless, he hired hands to build a corral, sought out high-grade horses, and spent much time at the North Elm Creek headquarters reading periodicals and writing detailed letters on everyday ranch affairs-all at a $1,500 annual salary. From 1884 to 1893 Drew and Marjoribanks managed the ranch. The high-handed extravagance and arrogance of the British investors caused considerable resentment among the cowhands and other area residents. Throughout his ten-year stay at the ranch, the "Honourable Archie" never mingled or rode with the cowboys. Though the Rockers profited for a time, the results of such chicanery eventually appeared in the financial reports. Deciding that a personal investigation was needed, Lord Aberdeen, Baron Tweedmouth, and other titled stockholders appeared one day unannounced at the ranch headquarters. To stave off potential embarrassment, Drew bluffed his way through the requested cattle census by hurriedly driving cattle around a hill and back again so that they were counted repeatedly. At each count, several hundred were added to the actual number. In the end, the "Lords of the Prairie" fell for Drew's bluff and left satisfied. Finally, on January 18, 1893, Archie Marjoribanks offered to sell the Rocking Chair. By then even he realized the extent of the cattle losses and the disastrous condition of the ranch's finances. When Lord Aberdeen and Baron Tweedmouth came again to investigate, they found the cattle count so low that they tried to sue John Drew, but no jury would rule in their favor. Drew was discharged, and George W. (Cap) Arrington was hired to replace him. Through careful management, Arrington shipped cattle and paid off overdue accounts. The losses of the past decade could not be entirely recouped, however, so Arrington started screening prospective buyers while the company went into the hands of a liquidator. On December 22, 1896, the 152,320-acre Rocking Chair Ranch was sold for $75,200 to William E. Hughes's Continental Land and Cattle Company. Hughes added it to his Mill Iron Ranch and designated the old Hay Camp near Dodson as the headquarters of the Collingsworth County section. After the Mill Iron was broken up in 1913, the former Rocking Chair range was leased by the Crews brothers of Childress. Although the Rocking Chair brand was discontinued after its sale to Hughes, it was revived in 1914 by C. E. Deahl, a former Rocking Chair Company employee, for his cattle operation near Panhandle. John N. Janes also used a modified Rocking Chair brand from 1914 to 1930. CONTINENTAL LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY The Continental Cattle Company, as it was originally called, was formed in 1881 by William Edgar Hughes, John N. Simpson,q and John W. Buster. Having recently purchased J. R. Couts's interest in the Hashknife Ranch and the Millett brothers' operation in Baylor County, Hughes and Simpson became president and vice president, respectively, of the company, which had offices in Dallas and St. Louis. Buster served as general manager, and several smaller stockholders formed the firm's core. Seeking to acquire more land and cattle, the company established the Mill Iron Ranch in the lower Texas Panhandle. After establishing a dugout headquarters in Hall County, Hughes and his associates began buying a number of small herds, of 200 to 300 each, between the Red and Pease rivers and started leasing sections near water for three cents an acre. Before long the Mill
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Iron grew to a total of 162,736 acres and encompassed portions of Hall, Childress, Motley, and Cottle counties. Ranches bordering the Mill Iron included the OX, Shoe Nail, Shoe Bar, Quitaque (Lazy F), Diamond Tail, and Matador.q The Mill Iron also maintained a feeding ranch on the Powder River in Montana, where herds were driven in the spring for summer fattening. The Montana property also supplied most of the cow ponies for the Mill Iron. Since these horses were above average in size, the Mill Iron soon became noted for big horses and big men. Once when an epidemic of glanders broke out among the horse herds in Texas, the local veterinarian drove thirty-five Mill Iron horses into Brewster Canyon, where they were shot. Many of them were favorites of individual cowboys, and they could not bear to watch, much less do the job themselves; from then on they avoided the canyon. Periodic visits by Hughes from his Denver residence were always dramatic occasions, especially when he arrived with his hunting dogs in his colorful, trim coach. On February 5, 1884, Hughes and his associates reorganized and incorporated their ranching enterprise as the Continental Land and Cattle Company, with their main office in St. Louis. Two years later the company absorbed the holdings of Hughes and Simpson in the Hashknife Ranch and moved its cattle to the Mill Iron range. During its heyday the Mill Iron branded between 10,000 and 12,000 calves annually; in 1890, 25,000 calves were reported. In 1896 the Mill Iron bought out the adjoining 152,320-acre Rocking Chair Ranch, thus extending its holdings into Collingsworth and Wheeler counties. On March 7, 1916, Hughes was named president of the firm and by October was its sole owner. Just before his death two years later, he sold the remaining Mill Iron cattle and gave the headquarters house in Estelline to Bob Green and his wife for their years of faithful service. Although the Hughes heirs continued ranching in the Panhandle on a limited basis, the Continental Land and Cattle Company had ceased to exist. Highways and farming establishments now cross the range where Mill Iron cattle once grazed. SCISSORS RANCH The Scissors was the first ranch established at the Adobe Walls site and the second in Hutchinson County, after Thomas Sherman Bugbee's Quarter Circle T. The ranch was founded in 1878 by William E. Anderson and named for its cattle brand, which resembled a pair of scissors. The brand was officially registered at Mobeetie in 1880. The 1880 census reported Anderson as owning 1,600 acres of pasture valued at $800. He had 485 cattle, fifteen milk cows, fifty-four horses, nine mules, and 7,000 sheep, all valued at $25,265. In 1879 he sold forty cattle, lost fifty dead, strayed, or stolen, and had a calf increase of 100. With his sheep Anderson apparently suffered a severe setback, for in 1879 he lost 200 to disease and 1,000 more from "stress of weather." During that year he sold only 646 sheep, slaughtered 200, and had a lamb increase of 1,500. He also clipped 4,200 sheep to get a total of 20,000 pounds of wool. Evidently Anderson had at least five men in his employ, since he paid out $1,500 for an estimated 260 weeks of employee time during 1879. Orville H. Nelson noted Anderson's ranching activities at Adobe Walls in 1879 while he was traveling from Kansas to buy cattle for the first time. Anderson was a charter member of the Panhandle Cattle Raisers' Association in 1880. He was among the jurors summoned for Wheeler County's third district court in 1881. The occasion was the trial of John McCabe, accused of killing Granger Dyer, Charles Goodnight's brother-in-law. The jurors, among them Cape Willingham, Emmanuel Dubbs, and R. E. McAnulty, found the defendant not guilty. In 1882 Anderson sold his holdings to the Hansford Land and Cattle Company, which was buying up ranches in the vicinity. It subsequently became part of the Turkey Track Ranch, and the Scissors brand was no longer used. RED RIVER The Red River is in the Mississippi drainage basin and is one of two Red Rivers in the nation. It is the second longest river associated with Texas. Its name comes from its color, which in turn comes from the fact that the river carries large quantities of red soil in flood periods. The river has a high salt content. The Spanish called the stream RÌo Rojo, among other names. It was also known in frontier times as the Red River of Natchitoches and the Red River of the Cadodacho (the Caddo Indians). Randolph B. Marcy and George B. McClellan identified the Prairie Dog Town Fork as the river's main stream in 1852. If one accepts their judgment the total length of the Red River is 1,360 miles, of which 640 miles is in Texas or along the Texas boundary. The drainage area of the river in Texas is 30,700 square miles. In 1944 Denison Dam was completed on the Red River to form Lake Texoma, which extends into Grayson and Cooke counties, Texas, and Marshall, Johnson, Bryan, and Love counties, Oklahoma, and was once the tenth-largest reservoir in the United States. Principal tributaries of the Red River, exclusive of its various forks, include the Pease and Wichita rivers in north central Texas, the Sulphur River in Northeast Texas, and, from Oklahoma, the Washita. The Ouachita is the main tributary in its lower course. Out of the canyon and into broken country, it flows eastward across central Hall and Childress counties for 160 miles. When the Prairie Dog Town Fork crosses the 100th meridian at the eastern line of Childress County, its south bank becomes the state boundary between Texas and Oklahoma and thus the northern county line of Hardeman and Wilbarger counties. Twelve miles northeast of Vernon the North Fork joins the Prairie Dog Town Fork to form the Red River proper (at 34ƒ24' N, 99ƒ32' W). Elm Creek, or the Elm Fork of the Red River, rises in northern Collingsworth County and drains into the North Fork of the Red River near the Greer-Kiowa county line in Oklahoma south of Altus Reservoir. The Salt Fork rises in north central Armstrong County, crosses part of Oklahoma, and joins the Prairie Dog Town Fork at the extreme northern point of Wilbarger County, Texas, sixteen miles northwest of Vernon. At this junction an ancient buffalo trail and the Western Trail once crossed the stream. Below the junction of the North Fork and the Prairie Dog Town Fork, the Red River proper continues to mark with its south bank the state line between Texas and Oklahoma and thus forms the northern county line of Wilbarger, Wichita, Clay, Montague, Cooke, Grayson, Fannin, Lamar, Red River, and Bowie counties. The river becomes the state line between Texas and Arkansas at the northeastern corner of Texas. Afterward, it leaves Texas and enters Arkansas, then continues eastward, forming the northern boundary of Miller County, before turning south-southeast to form the eastern boundary of the county. It then flows southeast across Louisiana. It forms the line between Caddo and Bossier parishes and then proceeds southeast across Red River and Natchitoches parishes, forms portions of the lines between Natchitoches and Grant and Grant and Rapides parishes, crosses northeastern Rapides and northwestern Avoyelles parishes, forms parts of the lines between Avoyelles and Catahoula, Avoyelles and Concordia, and Concordia and Pointe Coupe parishes, and finally reaches its mouth (at 31ƒ01' N, 91ƒ45' W) on the Mississippi River forty-five miles northwest of Baton Rouge and 341 miles above the Gulf of Mexico. Though the river once emptied completely into the Mississippi, more recently a part of its water at flood stage flows to the Gulf via the Atchafalaya. n the summer of 1541 the Coronado expedition explored the upper reaches of the Prairie Dog Town Fork in Palo Duro and Tule canyons. In the summer of 1542 the Moscoso expedition crossed the Red River in Louisiana on its way into East Texas. In 1690 Domingo Ter·n de los RÌos crossed Texas from southwest to northeast and reached the Red River, possibly as far down as the great raft and the Caddo Indian settlements in the area of present Texarkana. French traders used the river as an approach to establish a lucrative trade with the Caddos and associated tribes by the early eighteenth century. Farther up the river the Taovaya Indians had villages near the site of Spanish Fort in what is now Montague County, villages that in the middle eighteenth century were under French influence and flew a French flag. Diego Ortiz Parrilla, in charge of a Spanish punitive expedition, was defeated at the villages in 1759. In 1769 Athanase de MÈziËres was appointed lieutenant governor of the Natchitoches District with jurisdiction over the Red River valley. He was to suppress the traffic in stolen horses and Indian captives centered in the Taovaya villages, whose inhabitants by 1772 were trading with Englishmen from the east and Comanches on the High Plains. In 1778 MÈziËres visited the Red River villages and proposed a Tlascalan Indian settlement among them. Neither this proposal nor a suggestion in 1792 that a Spanish mission be built on the Red River was carried out. In 1841 the Texan Santa Fe expedition mistook the Wichita River for the Red River. In 1852 Randolph Barnes Marcy commanded an exploring expedition to the headwaters of the Canadian and the Red rivers, and a year later published a report on the trip, Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana in the Year 1852. The Red River War of 1874-75 ended Indian hostilities in the area.
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In 1805 Dr. John Sibley supplied the United States with a detailed description of the area up the river and westward as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Red River was again formally set forth as the northern boundary of Texas in the Adams-OnÌs Treaty of 1819. This treaty, as ratified by Spain and the United States in 1821 and by Mexico in 1822, established the Red River as the southwestern boundary of Louisiana-as far northwest as the 100th meridian, "as laid down on the Melish Map." Illegal infiltration continued across the river into Texas until the opening of Anglo-American colonization in 1821, when the river became the thoroughfare by which many pioneer settlers moved into Texas. Others came down the military road to Fort Towson and crossed the river at Jonesborough and Pecan Point. Many settlers along the river raised cotton in the rich blackland of Northeast Texas, despite its tendency to overflow, and the Red River County area was sufficiently settled to send delegates to the Convention of 1836. According to strict construction of the treaty of 1819, this strip belonged to Texas. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, on March 16, 1896, held that Texas was stopped from claiming this strip, for the following reasons: (1) In the Compromise of 1850, wherein Texas ceded all territory north of 36ƒ30" latitude and west of the 100th meridian, Texas had agreed to the true meridian and not the Melish meridian. (2) The true 100th meridian had been made the eastern boundary of Lipscomb, Hemphill, and Wheeler counties when they were legally formed. (3) The true 100th meridian as ascertained had been acquiesced in, recognized, and treated as the true boundary by various acts of Texas, and both governments had treated it as the proper boundary in the disposition they made of the territory involved. The view was virtually conceded as to all the strip, except for 3,840 square miles east of the true 100th meridian and between the forks of the Red River. The United States contended that the line following the course of the Red River eastward to the 100th meridian met the meridian at the point where it intersected the lower fork of the Red River; Texas contended that her boundaries extended along the Red River to the point where the upper fork intersected the 100th meridian. In other words, the question was which was the main fork of the Red River. The Supreme Court held that the disputed territory belonged to the United States. The decision, known as the Greer County case, resulted in the loss from Texas to what is now Oklahoma of 1,511,576 acres. A quarter of a century later another argument between Texas and Oklahoma occurred when oil was discovered in the bed of the river. With the extension of the Burkburnett Townsite pool, known as the Northwest Extension, it was discovered that a part of the pool lay in the bed of the Red River. This brought up the old question of Indian headright titles and caused a controversy that reached the Supreme Court and resulted in fixing the boundary of Texas at the bluff on the Texas side. Militia of both Texas and Oklahoma, together with the Texas Rangers, engaged in several battles. The bridge was burned, oilfield equipment destroyed, and property confiscated. Abel Warren had a post in northwestern Fannin County in 1836, one on the Oklahoma side of the river near the mouth of Walnut Creek in 1837, and a later post at the mouth of Cache Creek. The Central National Road of the Republic of Texas was surveyed to reach the Red River six miles above Jonesborough at Travis G. Wright's landing, then the head of navigation on the Red River. In 1853 Colbert's Ferry was opened across the river in northern Grayson County for the route that was subsequently used by the Butterfield Overland Mail, the partial direction of which had been determined by Randolph B. Marcy in his exploration of the Red River in 1852. Early crossings were made at Rock Bluff, Doan's Crossing, and Colbert's Ferry. As far as navigable, the river provided an outlet to New Orleans from Northeast Texas, and it became a highway for cotton, farm products, and eventually cattle boats. Sternwheelers, sidewheelers, and showboats plied the river alongside keelboats and pirogues. Before the railroad era, steamboats regularly navigated the Red River from New Orleans to the site of present Shreveport, but navigation of the upper river was hampered by the "great raft," a mass of driftwood and trees that obstructed the channel for seventy-five miles. In 1834-35 Capt. Henry M. Shreve removed the raft, but the river was not kept clear, and by 1856 the logjam again obstructed the river for thirty miles above Shreveport, backed up the waters of Big Cypress Creek to form Caddo Lake, and so made Jefferson the principal riverport of Texas until the removal of the raft again in 1874. NORTH FORK OF THE RED RIVER The North Fork of the Red River rises in central western Gray County (at 35ƒ24' N, 101ƒ05' W) and flows east for seventy miles across Gray and Wheeler counties. It is joined by McClellan Creek, its chief tributary, just west of the Wheeler county line. The stream crosses the 100th meridian into Oklahoma and flows east across Beckham County and then southeast to form the county lines between Greer and Kiowa, Kiowa and Jackson, and Jackson and Tillman counties. It joins the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River to form the Red River proper on the Oklahoma-Texas boundary northeast of Vernon, in Wilbarger County (at 34ƒ19' N, 99ƒ12' W). The basin is characterized by mostly flat terrain with local shallow depressions and clay loam and sandy loam soils. Vegetation consists primarily of water-tolerant hardwoods and grasses. RAVEN CREEK Raven Creek rises in south central Wheeler County (at 35ƒ11' N, 100ƒ12' W) and flows six miles to its mouth on Elm Creek (at 35ƒ07' N, 100ƒ09' W) in northeastern Collingsworth County. The stream flows through terrain of rolling to moderately steep slopes, where clay and sandy loams support juniper, cacti, and grasses. CROW CREEK Crow Creek rises a few miles east of Shamrock in southeastern Wheeler County (at 35ƒ14' N, 100ƒ11' W) and runs southeast for six miles into Collingsworth County, where it reaches its mouth on Elm Creek (at 35ƒ07' N, 100ƒ06' W). The stream crosses rolling to steep-sloped terrain surfaced by shallow clay and sandy loams that support primarily juniper and sparse grasses. During the 1880s and early 1890s Crow Creek was included in the vast rangeland owned or leased by the Rocking Chair Ranch.
Gageby Creek rises eight miles northwest of Mobeetie in northwestern Wheeler County (at 35ƒ37' N, 100ƒ30' W) and runs east, then northeast, for a total of fifteen miles before reaching its mouth on the Washita River, seventeen miles southeast of Canadian in Hemphill County (at 35ƒ43' N, 100ƒ09' W). The stream runs through flat to rolling terrain with some local escarpments. Local vegetation consists mainly of mesquite shrubs and grasses in deep fine sandy loam. The creek was named for Capt. James Harrison Gageby of the Third Infantry, who campaigned against Indians in the area. The Buffalo Wallow Fight of September 12, 1874, occurred on the divide north of the creek, and the town of Gageby was established near its north bank. In the latter half of the twentieth century, a series of dams and small lakes was constructed on the stream's upper waters in Wheeler County. ELM CREEK (Collingsworth County) Elm Creek, also known as the Elm Fork of the Red River, rises in northern Collingsworth County near the Wheeler county line about six miles southwest of Shamrock (at 35ƒ11' N, 100ƒ22' W) and runs southeast across northeastern Collingsworth County and into Oklahoma, where it crosses southwestern Beckham County and central Greer County south of Granite before reaching its mouth on the North Fork of the Red River, near the Greer-Kiowa county line and just south of Altus Reservoir (at 35ƒ03' N, 99ƒ57' W). Two major tributaries, Hackberry and Long Dry creeks, originate in southern Wheeler County. Elm Creek traverses flat terrain with local shallow depressions, surfaced by clay and sandy loams that support water-tolerant hardwoods, conifers, and grasses. The creek, included in the disputed Greer County during the 1880s and 1890s, was used by various ranching outfits. Its upper portion in Collingsworth County was among the properties owned or leased by the Rocking Chair Ranch and later by the Mill Iron Ranch (see CONTINENTAL LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY) and the Crews brothers.
Sweetwater Creek rises in northeastern Gray County (at 35ƒ37' N, 100ƒ36' W) and flows southeast thirty-five miles across northern Wheeler County and southwestern Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, to unite with the North Fork of the Red River in Beckham County, Oklahoma (at 35ƒ18' N, 99ƒ57' W). The creek runs through flat to rolling hills surfaced with sand and sandy loams that support hardwoods, brush, and grasses. Fort Elliott and Hidetown (later Sweetwater, then Mobeetie) were established in the 1870s near the creek, a favorite haunt of hide hunters during the height of the buffalo slaughter.
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