Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0099/00991.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00991}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The Big Bend
Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tyler, Ronnie C.}
$Affiliation{National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior}
$Subject{big
cattle
bend
ranch
fort
near
davis
silver
head
mountains}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Title:       The Big Bend
Book:        Chapter 5: Settling The Big Bend
Author:      Tyler, Ronnie C.
Affiliation: National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior
Date:        1984

Part II

Other Ranchers

     While Spencer and Faver built the large herds, smaller ranchers located
near Fort Davis to supply the needs of the soldiers.  When Bliss arrived at
the fort in 1855, Daniel Murphy, whose herd was located near the post, was the
beef contractor.  He later established a ranch in Toyah Valley in the Davis
Mountains.  Five miles down Limpia Canyon, Diedrick Dutchover raised sheep
unsuccessfully because the Indians raided so often he could not make money.
Bliss warned that no one was safe more than 2 miles from the post.  In April
1877, two of Murphy's men were killed within a few hundred yards of another
ranch as they gathered wood.  Dutchover finally sold the remainder of his
flock to the soldiers.  E. P. Webster lived at the fort, preferring to take no
unnecessary risks.  He ran his cattle on the nearby range under army
protection.  Another early rancher who sought army contracts was Manuel
Musquiz, a recent immigrant from Mexico who established his ranch south of
the fort, in what is today Musquiz Canyon. Although he was frequently
harassed by the Indians, he refused to leave the substantial home that he had
built there for his family.

     After the Civil War, would-be ranchers moved rapidly into the Big Bend.
Dutchover returned for another try, while Sam Miller, the civilian butcher at
the fort, also decided to get a "beef contract" with the army. He soon had
over 300 oxen and beef cattle pastured nearby.  Colonel Grierson and Sgt.
Charles Mulhern built herds while they were in the military at Fort Davis,
then remained after their discharge.  "Uncle John" Davis established his ranch
not far from Faver's in 1870.  Probably impressed by the fortress that Faver
had constructed, Davis built a similar one on the banks of Alamito Creek.  He
quickly developed a large herd of cattle and horses and was competing
successfully with Faver and the others for the available market.  Bliss
commented in his reminiscences that fresh meat on the hoof was always
available while he was at Fort Davis."

     George Crosson, a freighter who had traveled the Chihuahua Trail in the
1860's, became one of the better known ranchers in the area. Realizing that
the railroad would soon come through the region, bringing with it a new form
of prosperity, Crosson decided to establish a sheep ranch near Fort Davis.
His operation was highly successful.  A correspondent for the San Antonio
Daily Express who visited the ranch in 1877 found Crosson's flocks in good
condition, yielding a high quality wool.  "His success has been satisfactory,
notwithstanding attacks and depredations that would have discouraged a less
energetic and determined man," the correspondent noted.  Just before the
traveler arrived, in fact, Crosson, his herders, and several soldiers fought
off a party of Indians who were driving off his horses and mules.  Crosson had
10,000 sheep in his pastures when H. N. Dimick, of Uvalde, visited his ranch
in 1882.  A later traveler pronounced him "one of the most successful sheepmen
in the state . . . ."

     Another knowledgeable sheepman was Lawrence Haley, whose ranch Dimick
also visited.  After touring the land, the newcomer concluded that "Mr. Haley
and Mr. Crosson have got the key to this country.  They have the best range
and the most water that I have found since I left home . . . ."  Dimick was
so impressed, in fact, that he leased an extensive parcel of land himself.
Destined to become one of the largest landholders in the Big Bend, John A.
Pool, Sr., arrived from Missouri in 1885.  He bought Faver's Cienega Ranch and
eventually owned land from Marfa to the Rio Grande.

     One of the most beautiful spots in the Big Bend went to Lucas C. Brite, a
young cowboy who reached Capote Mountain with his herd in October 1885.  "Had
one stood on the Capote Mountain and viewed the surroundings," Brite later
recalled, "he would most likely have been impressed with the thought that the
country was just as God had made it, not a trace of man was visible.  Not a
house in sight; no fences, no windmills, no water places, not even a road and
no livestock of the domestic order."  With his 140 cattle Brite built a large
ranch and a fortune that allowed him to become a philanthropist in his old
age."

     Another famous ranchman in the Big Bend was Richard M. Gano, former Civil
War general and preacher.  John, his son, moved to the Big Bend, where he
served as deputy surveyor for Presidio County, which at that time included all
of what would become Big Bend National Park.  Gano was able to accumulate one
of the largest ranches in the Big Bend.  John, his brother, and a partner, E.
L. Gage, even established a land office in Dallas.  They organized the Estado
Land and Cattle Company to handle their far-flung ranching activities in the
Big Bend.  The Ganos owned over 55,000 acres of land in the southern part of
what is today Brewster County, in Block G4 of the survey.  G4 became the name
of the ranch.

     James B. Gillett, the ranch manager, recalled that the "Ganos had it all
to themselves."  In 1885 they shipped 2,000 head of cattle from Dallas and
Denton counties in north Texas to their ranch.  From Uvalde County they drove
another 2,000 head overland to the Big Bend.  Meanwhile, they had purchased
another 2,000 and shipped them by rail to Marathon.  By late summer they had
6,000 head of cattle grazing on their rich G4 pasture land.  Initially the
company prospered, increasing until the herd was estimated at almost 30,000 by
1891.  But drought and other problems combined to decrease that number
considerably.  By the time the company was disbanded in 1895, only 15,000 head
could be rounded up.  Even at that the G4 did not suffer as much as the
neighbors during the severe droughts of the mid-1880's. Most of the small
cattlemen in the northern Big Bend lost heavily, but "not a head of G4 cattle
died for the want of grass or water," claimed Gillett.  Presumably, they died
of natural causes, were rustled, lost or sold.

     Although the decline of such vast empires discouraged some smaller
ranchers, others continued to settle in the Big Bend.  Perhaps they were
inspired by the example of W. L. "Uncle Billy" Kingston.  Newly married, he
set out for the West with 107 cattle, his wagon and team, and $4.70 in cash.
At some point west of the Pecos River, he saw some cowboys dressing a calf
that looked so good he inquired where it had been raised.  Told that the calf
had been nourished in the Big Bend, "Uncle Billy" forsook his plan of settling
in Arizona and turned southward to the Big Bend.  He soon agreed to buy 160
acres and leased another 2,500.  Before he died "Uncle Billy" had a
40,000-acre ranch.  Others from all parts of the State followed him.  Some of
the settlers were former Texas Rangers who had guarded the railroad surveying
team as it inched westward, or who were stationed at Fort Davis as part of the
famous Frontier Battalion.  There were novices like Capt. A. E. Shepherd, who
traded his interest in a fleet of Great Lakes freighters for the Iron Mountain
Ranch, near Marathon.  G. W. Evans moved to the Big Bend because the country
around Lampasas, Tex., was getting too crowded.  His brother-in-law, John Z.
Means, joined him in the move.  "There were some cattle rustlers in the
country," said Mrs. Evans, "but things were fairly peaceful."

     The Big Bend was soon settled.  John Beckwith brought 100 Herefords to
his ranch on Maravillas Creek in 1878.  H. L. Kokernot and his uncle purchased
extensive holdings in 1883.  The following year Capt.  Pat Dolan brought
graded cattle to his range in Limpia Canyon, and W. B. Hancock drove cattle
from Uvalde to Alpine.  In 1885 W. T. Henderson settled at the mouth of the
creek, and Jim Wilson located some 30 miles upstream.  Big Benders owned more
than 60,000 head of cattle in 1886, the year of the first big roundup.

Trail Drives

     The ranchers faced many problems, some heightened because of the
isolation or harshness of the country.  The first documented trail drive in
the Big Bend occurred in 1864, the result of the debilitating effects of the
Civil War.  Conditions favored the growth of the ranching industry in 1860;
there was a steady influx of settlers, the mail route was frequently used, and
Fort Davis remained as a deterrent to Indians who threatened to steal the
herds.  But when the war broke out, the troops were removed, several leading
citizens left to join forces with the Confederacy, and the passenger and
freight traffic along the Chihuahua Trail diminished considerably.  Because
the State's resources went toward the Confederate war effort, residents of the
area turned to Mexico for markets and supplies. Thousands of cattle were
trailed through the Big Bend during the 1860's.  W. A. Peril organized a herd
and drove it from Fort McKavett country, near the old San Saba presidio and
mission in present-day Menard County, over the Chihuahua Trail to Mexico, and
in 1868 Capt.  D. M. Poer took 1,200 head from Fort Concho to the Terrazas
hacienda in Chihuahua.  W. O. Burnam and several neighbors in Burnet County
organized a herd to take to Mexico in 1868.  They reported no trouble from
Indians, but said that Mexican rustlers stole some of their longhorns.

     Will Tom Carpenter was an experienced cowhand by the time he reached the
Big Bend in the early 1890's.  A veteran of long trail drives through Fort
Worth, he moved to a ranch south of Alpine and operated it for the Hereford
Cattle Company.  "It was an incorporated company, a bunch of Boston Guys,"
Carpenter later wrote, "it wasn't a big Ranch, only about 3,000 head of
cattle."  During Christmas week 1892, Carpenter began driving 1,760 head of
cattle into the teeth of a norther.  "It was trying to storm and do Everything
Else but something nice," he recalled."The fog would be so thick of nights
that we couldn't see the cattle, and they would just walk off from 7 or 8 men
on guard.  We lost the herd 3 different nights before we got off with them
. . . it was right in their Range and they wanted to get away and did," he
explained.  The situation improved slightly when it snowed and the sky
cleared, leaving two and one-half inches of snow on the ground.  When they
reached the Pecos River, Carpenter had difficulty getting the cattle to enter
the water, although they could walk across on firm river bottom.  "Those
cattle had been raised in those mountains south of Alpine," said Carpenter,
"the biggest water they had ever seen was a spring, only when a big rain
happened along, which wasn't very often.  So they was afraid of so much
water."  After coaxing them across the river, Carpenter and his crew herded
the cattle on to their destination with little problem, but cold weather cost
them several cattle.

Rustlers

     There were other hazards as well.  Rustlers were common because of the
many unbranded longhorns roaming the region.  Even those with brands often had
such simple marks that they could be easily altered.  The Mexican border was
close and enticing.  Nobody was immune.  Even the Texas Rangers themselves
were once victimized by a daring gang of rustlers near Fort Davis in January
1882.  While the Rangers were occupied elsewhere, Dave Rudabaugh, an escape
from the Las Vegas, N. Mex. jail, stole their horses.  After securing other
horses from the fort, the Rangers followed the bandits' trail, but by then it
was cold, and they got away.

     A gang that specialized in stealing herds from settlers who had not yet
located their land conducted several thefts near the Davis Mountains in 1885.
They were captured by local cattlemen working with Texas Rangers, and more
than 300 head of cattle were recovered.

     The stereotype of the Big Bend bandit soon became the Mexican rustler who
dashed across the river to gather in some longhorns, then retreated to safety
across the Mexican border.  But it did not always work. After losing 1,200
head of cattle from their ranches along Maravillas Creek in 1891, the
cattlemen pursued the Mexicans across the river and recovered their cattle.
The Big Bend ranchers were probably more troubled by Americans, or at least
residents of Texas.  Ranger Capt.  Charles Nevill pursued Tom Blue and two
Mexicans to Presidio del Norte in December 1881 because they were suspected of
stealing several mules at Carrizo Springs. Still, rustling was one of the
problems that caused Milton Faver to quit ranching.

     The Big Bend ranchers began to record their brands in 1875, indicating
that the cattle industry had become so widespread that identification was
necessary and that cattle rustling was a problem. Diedrick Dutchover and John
Davis recorded their brands in 1877; George Crosson followed in 1878.

Stampedes

     Perhaps even more hazardous than rustlers were the occasional stampedes
that took a heavy toll in stock and, sometimes, cowboys. According to the
old-timers, most of the stampedes took place near the Pecos River, where the
grass and water were so salty that the cattle became tense and irritable.  In
addition, the region was swamped with kangaroo rats that frequently set off
stampedes by spooking or irritating the cattle. Probably the most famous Big
Bend stampede took place at Robber's Roost in 1896.  "I saw a sight I never
expected to see again," recalled Arthur Mitchell.  "Mountains of meat - gory
from torn flesh.  Grotesque shapes with broken necks, broken horns; here and
there a slight movement indicating that somewhere below were a few not yet
smothered."  It happened during the annual roundup on the Mitchell ranch.  The
cowboys had corralled 1,500 head of cattle near the rim of Robber's Roost.
Something, probably a coyote or panther, set off the herd.  The cowboys
realized instantly that they had a stampede on their hands.  "Snatching
whatever was handy - a slicker, a saddle blanket, or better still a flaming
torch from the camp fire," remembered F. A. Mitchell, "they leaped into the
corral brandishing their assorted weapons in the face of the maddened herd."
But they were too late. Literally hundreds of cattle plunged over the cliff.
The cowboys worked through the night to save those they could reach, but it
was not until morning that they realized the hopelessness of their task.  "It
was an appalling sight," continued Mitchell.  "By a miracle no human body had
been added to this gruesome mound."

     Tom Granger, a trail hand with Norman and Morgan of Presidio County,
recalled the most peculiar stampede of his life.  As a 16-year-old boy, he was
helping drive a herd to Amarillo in March 1890 in an electrical storm.  "The
cattle were milling and hard to hold," he remembered, "then electricity got to
playing over their backs, and running along their horns like lights."  Granger
confessed that he was frightened as the thunder and lightning cracked and the
cattle charged - but so were the more seasoned hands.  A stampede was not to
be taken lightly.

Drought

     The drought of 1885 left most Big Bend cattlemen desperate.  The pastures
suffered, waterholes dried up, and the pools and streams that still held water
were badly overcrowded by thirsty cattle.  Then a bad winter caused the stock
to scatter.  The drought of 1886 proved equally harsh.  The cattle were moved
from poor ranges to good pasture wherever possible.  But still they died.
Nineteen were left dead on one campsite. Uneasily noting that they needed to
take action, the cattlemen began talking of a general roundup.  Finally, they
set aside 2 weeks in August for it.  Two groups of cowboys swept through the
Bend, saving most of the cattle.

     But some ranches could not go on.  One of the most notable failures was
Frank Collinson, an Englishman who immigrated to Texas in 1872 at age 16.
After learning the trade at the Circle Dot Ranch in Medina County, Collinson
came to the Big Bend in 1882.  "At the time it was a veritable 'no man's
land,'" he recalled, "and few people had ventured into its deep, rugged, and
almost impassable canyons."  At first Collinson thought the Big Bend would
have been poor ranch country, but he soon changed his mind.  By 1888 he had
convinced the Coggin brothers (Samuel and M. J.) and Henry Ford, a Brownwood
banker, to invest in a ranch in the Glass Mountains, near Marathon.  But the
droughts continued, and the cattle market fell sharply. By 1891 the Big Bend
had received no measurable rainfall for 1 years. Collinson drilled wells, but
did not find sufficient water.  "Over half the cattle from San Antonio to the
Rio Grande are dead," he informed his partners in 1892.  The following year
was no better.  "The Pecos is nearly dry and is so strong of alkali that it
take[s] the skin of[f] the tongues of any animals that try to drink," he wrote
Samuel Coggin.  By June 1894, Collinson had been whipped.  He had found by
hard experience that the sod was poor and the water scarce.  "I faced such
problems half my life and concluded that the Big Bend is another Pharaoh's
Dream," he later wrote, "a few years are followed by more lean years, which
eat up all that the good years have made, and then some."

Barbed Wire Empire

     The open-range days in the Big Bend were numbered.  The roundups and
other cattle industry procedures worked only so long as the range was
available to everyone.  The coming of many small ranchers to the Big Bend led
to widespread fencing.  There might have been some fencing as early as 1885,
but W. F. Mitchell did not close in his pastures near Robber's Roost until
1888.  Pat Coleman and W. W. Bogel renewed the trend in 1893, when they
enclosed their pasture.  By 1895 Humphris and Company had fenced a 16-section
range.  The last stronghold of the open range was gone by 1900.

     When fences closed the range, they changed the nature of the cattle
business.  Fences made possible the improvement of herds, thus numbering the
days of the wild Texas longhorns, which could no longer compete successfully
in the eastern markets with the better breeds from other ranges.  By 1876 W.
S. Ikard, a central Texas rancher, had already imported Herefords.  The
Northwestern Texas Cattleman's Association, meeting in Dallas in 1883, adopted
resolutions urging the improvement of Texas cattle.  John Beckwith, George W.
Evans, Jim and Beau McCutcheon, Pat Dolan, and Jim Hilder had brought better
stock into the Big Bend in the 1880's, but most ranchers had not yet fenced
their lands and could not participate in the herd improvements.  By the 1890's
most of the area cattlemen were raising the quality of their herds with
Shorthorns, Durhams, and Herefords.  The Marfa New Era proudly boasted of a
steer raised on the J. B. Irving ranch at Alpine in 1911.  It was "said to be
a many record breaker, weighing on the hoof 1740 pounds . . . ."

Folklore In The Big Bend

     One of the great legacies of the cattle industry is the folklore it has
provided for the Big Bend.  One of the most intriguing legends concerns the
MURDER calf.  The incident that inspired the story occurred during the general
roundup of January 1891.  Henry H. Powe, a rancher, disputed with Fine
Gilliland, a cowboy working for one of the big ranches, the ownership of an
unbranded calf.  After a heated argument, both men drew their pistols and
Gilliland shot Powe to death, then fled.  He was later tracked down by the
Texas Rangers in the Glass Mountains and shot.  The cowboys who saw Gilliland
kill Powe commemorated the occasion by branding the disputed calf with the
word MURDER and turning him loose.  There the legend takes over.  Although
there is evidence that the yearling was taken to Montana in the drive, some
contend that it stayed in Texas, wandering through the Big Bend, shying away
from other cattle, an outcast.  Others insist that it turned prematurely gray,
that the hair on the brand turned red, and even that the brand grew with the
calf until the word MURDER practically covered his side.  Thus marked, the
steer supposedly wandered throughout the Big Bend looking for the man who made
him a grim reminder of a violent event.

Mining

     The Big Bend was more than good ranching country; it was also rich in
mineral resources.  Spaniards and Americans alike searched the region for gold
and silver.  The Spaniards stationed at Presidio San Vicente reportedly had a
mine in the Chisos Mountains that could not be worked because the expense of
getting the metal out cost more than it produced.  Other Spaniards were
supposed to have buried treasure in the mountains, while legends tell of
silver supposedly hidden at several sites.  The tales of buried treasure and
gold and silver mines later led many prospectors on futile searches, and still
lure hundreds of treasure-hunters into the Big Bend each year with their
hunches and electronic metal detectors.  While the Big Bend has produced no
lost Spanish treasures - and it is not likely to - it has yielded some silver
ore and great quantities of quicksilver.

     Silver mining lasted only a short time.  Ore was discovered in the
Chinati Mountains, near Milton Faver's ranch.  John W. Spencer mined there on
a small scale in the 1860's, taking what he could to Mexico in burro carts to
be smelted.  Professor Wilhelm H. Steeruwitz, a well-known geologist who
visited the region in 1878, reported the presence of gold and silver, but it
was not until 1882 that Spencer found evidence of enough silver to enlarge his
operations.  A vein in the Chinatis seemed to have a high ore content,
according to Fort Davis assayers.  Gathering capital from California, where
entrepreneurs were more willing to invest in mining, Spencer formed the
Presidio Mining Company, with W. S. Noyes of San Francisco as president and
Lt. John Bullis and Gen. William R. Shafter of Fort Davis holding interests.

     Because of the deserted nature of the country around the Chinatis,
everything had to be brought in by wagon.  The machinery was transported to
Paisano Pass on the Southern Pacific Railroad and hauled to the mine site by
wagon.  Humphris and Company of Marfa supplied 4,000 cords of wood annually,
because timber was scarce in the Chinatis.  The company even cut lumber in
northern Mexico, ignoring the international complications, in order to get
wood for the furnace.

     Marfa could have been the market for the silver miners.  Four years after
Spencer began working his claim, the "Marfa New Era" found the prospects "most
encouraging" for both the miners and the city.  "It will not be long before
Marfa will be shipping more silver bullion than any point in the southwestern
silver district," wrote the editor.  He even predicted that when the riches of
the Chinatis became well known, easterners would be anxious to invest in the
venture.  That would mean "prosperity and wealth for Marfa," he concluded.
What wealth there was, however, went through the town of Shafter, which was
established to accommodate the miners.

     If not large, the Chinati silver mines at least proved profitable. The
Shafter mine changed hands in 1910, and the new owners announced their
intention of introducing a new cyanide process.  Oil replaced wood as fuel,
keeping wagons busy hauling oil from Marfa.  In 1913 the 50-ton mill was
replaced with a 300-ton mill, and the refining process was improved by
replacing quicksilver with cyanide, permitting 600 tons of ore to be treated
in 24 hours.  The miners encountered veins as rich as $500 per ton and others
as poor as $8 per ton.  Nevertheless, they made money.  They tunneled through
the Chinati Mountains, running shafts in every direction until they had more
than 100 miles of tunnels that finally yielded over $20,000,000 in silver.  At
times the mines employed as many as 300 men and built Shafter, a company town
between Marfa and Presidio consisting of a club house, a hospital, a boarding
house, and family houses.  The partially abandoned town stands today as a
physical reminder of the strike.  When the silver ran out, mining ceased as
quickly as it had begun.

     There were hints of coal in the Big Bend.  In 1886 a prospector named
McKenzie found some coal seams northwest of Marfa, near Eagle Springs.
Although he was not overwhelmed by the production, he found the yield "highly
satisfactory" and still had capital to invest in cattle.  O. W. Williams
noticed a vein of poor quality coal in the Chisos Mountains while surveying in
1902.  Coal was mined in the 1910's near Terlingua to provide fuel for the
quicksilver furnaces after the companies began to run short of wood, but
production was never impressive.

     In what might have been a unique discovery, W. A. Robbins and S. H. Eaton
announced in 1909 that they had discovered the kind of lime rock in the
Solitario Mountains that made good lithographic stones.  The finest
lithographic stones were imported from a Bavarian quarry discovered by the man
who perfected the lithographic technique, Alois Senefelder.  Robbins and Eaton
felt that they had found a stone good enough to be commercially valuable, but
little came of this discovery.

     Some of the more interesting artifacts in the Big Bend - remains of old
wooden towers and pieces of cable and ore buckets - owe their existence to the
Corte Madera Mine in Mexico near Boquillas.  The editor of the Alpine
Avalanche reported in February 1910 that 250 tons of lead and zinc ore were to
be transported across the river on a 6-mile-long cable, then shipped to the
Southern Pacific station at Marathon in cars pulled by traction engines.  The
cable tramway was an ingenious device to avoid hauling the ore over rough
terrain and floating it across the river.  The tramway's 90 ore buckets and 15
water buckets could carry 7 1/2 tons of ore an hour.  The mines, offices, and
living quarters were in Mexico; the terminal was in Ernst Valley, on the
American side.  Today the ruins of the tramway can still be seen by hiking
along the Ore Terminal Trail.