In 1876, a bullish, weather-beaten man gazed off into the horizon while scratching his beard. The featureless, boundless expanse of the Texas Panhandle made it difficult to navigate. For days, he and his Mexican guide searched on horseback for a canyon, an anomalous, jagged gash in the Panhandle plains. One that could contain a massive Longhorn cattle herd and their dedicated cowhands. Finally, they found their destination - Palo Duro Canyon. After looking over the deep canyon with its towering cliffs, well-watered pasture, and cedar trees, the old trail herder liked what he saw. One of the greatest cattle barons in U. S. history, Charles Goodnight, had found the location for his new ranch.
Bio
Goodnight liked to brag he was born at the same time as the Republic of Texas, March 5, 1836, in Macoupin County, Illinois. In 1845, his family journeyed 800 miles to Milam County, Texas. It was there he learned to hunt and track while hiring himself out to work at neighboring farms and plantations. Ten years later, he and his stepbrother were herding cattle in the Brazos Valley to Palo Pinto County where he eventually moved his mother and siblings. It was there he would meet the man who would dramatically change his life - Oliver Loving. Together they ran cattle through the Indian Territory, Kansas and Colorado. During the Civil War, Goodnight fought Comanches as a Texas Ranger, assisting in the recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker, the famed Anglo mother of Comanche chief, Quanah Parker. After the war, Goodnight and Loving established the Goodnight-Loving trail stretching from South Central Texas to Wyoming. Loving was killed fighting Indians. Goodnight had his body sent back to his home in Weatherford, Texas for burial. In 1869, he established his Rock Canyon Ranch near Pueblo, Colorado. While there, he married Molly Dyer, a schoolteacher from Weatherford. Settling into ranch life proved short-lived, Goodnight lost most of his holdings during the Panic of 1873. To recoup his losses, he decided to make a fresh start, ranching in the remote grasslands of the Texas Panhandle.
The Panhandle
After sending Molly to California to live with relatives, Goodnight gathered a herd of sixteen hundred longhorn cattle near Trinidad, Colorado before herding them across the Llano Estacado, a region few traveled much less settled. The Comanches and Kiowas, who once inhabited the region, were now corralled in their Southwest Oklahoma reservations after the 1874-1875 Red River War. Goodnight had some knowledge of the Panhandle from his service with the Texas Rangers, but no full understanding of what lie ahead. What did lie ahead was a region of buffalo hunters, Indian traders, and bandits on the lookout for horses and cattle to steal. The most dangerous being a demented, half-French, half-Mexican gunfighter named Sostenes Archiveque; who claimed to have killed 23 Americans before being run out of New Mexico. Adding to this seedy array were the sheepherders who weren’t exactly thrilled to share their land with cattle ranchers. What little law and order there was came from distant army forts. The nearest Texas civilian court of law was over two hundred miles away in Henrietta. Law, for the most part, was law of the six-gun or rope.
Home Ranch
After herding his cattle into the canyon, Goodnight’s cowhands chased off any nearby grazing buffalo herds by firing their six-shooters at their feet, setting off a massive buffalo stampede out of the canyon. Next, they built corrals, a house and a smokehouse. Goodnight christened his collection of buildings and cattle the “Home Ranch.” Provisions were shipped by wagon from Colorado or Kansas. During shortages, food, namely buffalo, antelope and wild turkeys, were hunted on the plains. Highly sought tobacco, that was either smoked or chewed, was replaced with coffee grinds.
The Negotiations
While on the way back from buying provisions, Goodnight encountered one of Old West’s most notorious horse thieves, Dutch Henry Born, a German immigrant and former scout for General George Armstrong Custer. Not one to settle for a menial job, Dutch Henry turned to theft, specializing in Indian ponies and mules. After introducing himself, Goodnight and Dutch Henry reached an agreement. Dutch Henry’s band of horse thieves would not cross into Goodnight’s ranch and face his well-armed cowhands. In return, the land above the Salt Fork of the Red River was Dutch’s to plunder. The deal was sealed over a bottle of French brandy. Surprisingly, Dutch honored the agreement.
The sheepherders, on the other hand, were a touchy issue. For years, prior to Goodnight’s arrival, vast herds of sheep or pastores were herded out of Las Vegas, New Mexico into the Panhandle for winter grazing. In the spring, the sheep were returned to Las Vegas for shearing. At that time, there were no fences. Until the arrival of barbed wire, custom dictated boundaries. Respecting those customs was another matter. When a pastores drifted into Goodnight’s ranch, his cowhands herded them into the Canadian River, drowning four to five hundred sheep. A deputy arrived from Las Vegas and arrested the guilty party. Goodnight was forced to pay damages for their release. In an agreement with the sheepherder leaders or mayordomos, Goodnight would keep his cattle out of the Canadian River Valley. The sheepherders would stay out of the Palo Duro Canyon.
Like any growing business, you need money. Money to buy provisions, buy cattle, buy land, lobby government officials, and pay the ranch hands. The problem was where to get it. For Goodnight, the solution was investment. The investment, however, came from an unlikely source, an Irishman and heir to a large estate in Rathdair, Ireland - John George Adair. Trained for diplomatic service, he decided finance was more to his liking. In 1866, Adair established a brokerage firm in New York, getting rich by lending to the English at low interest rates and lending to Americans at higher rates. His wife, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie, was an attractive, widowed New York socialite. Both of them had a taste for the sporting life and wanted to go out west to hunt buffalo. No buffalo were killed, but Adair did accidentally shoot and killed his horse, and almost himself, when his horse stepped into a prairie dog hole. Nevertheless, the West fascinated him, and he moved his brokerage firm to Denver in 1875. It was there he met Charles Goodnight, who invited him and his wife to his new ranch in Texas. Goodnight’s wife, Molly, would accompany the Adairs and her husband. In 1877, the Goodnights, the Adairs, four wagons, a light ambulance, and a hundred head of short-horned Durham bulls set out from Trinidad for the Texas Panhandle.
Anxious to get into the cattle industry, Adair agreed to invest nearly $500,000 at 10% interest for a five year period. The name of the ranch was changed to the JA (Adair’s initials) Ranch. Goodnight would manage the ranch for an annual salary of $2,500. With the investment money, Goodnight purchased 24,000 acres in a scattered, elongated crazy-quilt fashion that included crucial hayfields and watering holes. By doing so, he was able to gain control of the entire canyon.
Paving the way for such acquisitions was the firm of Gunter, Munson and Summerfield, surveyors and lawyers out of Sherman, Texas. Jot Gunter traded in land certificates like baseball cards. Millions of Texas acres were granted to railroads, corporations and cash-laden individuals. Goodnight’s cattle expertise held him in good stead with the firm, who was more than eager to entice him with additional acres. He later recalled, “I bought land anywhere and everywhere I could get it, provided I could get it right. I paid different prices for it. Some land cost me twenty cents per acre, some twenty-five, som thirty, and some thirty-five cents per acre.”
In five years, Adair made a profit of $512,000. After 1878, the JA Ranch went through a period of expansion. The buffalo were killed off by hunters, leaving the grass to the cattle. Improved breeds, artificial watering holes and barbed wire followed. Goodnight's herd grew to 100,000 head. More land adjacent to the canyon was purchased from Gunter, including the Tule and Quitaque Ranches. Through Goodnight's careful guidance, the JA Ranch became the best managed ranch on the plains.
Check It Out
Check out J. Evetts Haley's fine book, "Charles Goodnight Cowman and Plainsman." Goodnight's life is like a Hollywood western, but better.
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