waggoner ranch brand
a full partner, gave him $12, a group of drovers, and fifty hard-used saddle horses, and sent him to Abilene, Kansas, with a herd of five thousand steers. Ill draw a line and you take first pick, he offered. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vista Caliente - Signed Print by Woodrow M. Blagg - Cowboys - Waggoner Ranch at the best online prices at eBay! Bucky wanted the ranch to be divided, not liquidated. Heath@WaggonerRanch.com The history of the land and the Waggoner family is so entwined with myth and legend that nobody can untangle the truth. But Wait, There's More A smattering of the more than 4,000 items listed on the. Electra prevailed, as usual. When Judge Tom Neely, who is in charge of the current lawsuit to break up the ranch, was a young attorney in a previous round of Waggoner lawsuits during the sixties, he and other lawyers found some of E. Pauls letters to Helen. Waggoner Ranch cowboys like and respect both families and consider them fair and generous. The answer lies in the rich and rowdy heritage of the Waggoner clan. She left an enduring reputation and two children from the first of her three marriages: Tom Waggoner Wharton, who died of syphilis at age 25, eight-times married but childless, and A. Patel Brothers - largest Indian American supermarket chain. Its absence symbolizes the fate of the Guy Waggoner clan in the history of the ranch. Dan Waggoner passed away in 1903, and his son, W. T. (Tom) Waggoner continued to expand his ranching interests. Cowboys worry that the feud will destroy the ranch. This huge block of farmland is crossfenced into large manageable fields which are suitable for grazing thousands of head of wheat pasture cattle. One of the most interesting properties at Zacaweista is the gothic stone barn where Buster Wharton bred his polo ponies. I cant sit down, never could, he tells me. This is your chance to purchase the W.T. Waggoner had built a great ranch, but in 1909 he was 57 years old and thinking about its future. Approximately 160,000 acres of the 560,000 acres areproven prolific oilproperties. Though he wouldnt talk about the lawsuit, he spoke freely about his bewildering transformation from New Mexico schoolboy to co-owner of one of the countrys most famous ranches. Joe Roberson, who was the estates auditor for many years, describes him this way: Big belt buckle, expensive boots, a bottle of whiskey. E. Paul had a good eye for horseshe bought Poco Bueno, the great cutting horse sireand loved to be seen as the ultimate cattle baron, but a retired Waggoner Ranch foreman named G. L. Proctor told me, He wasnt much of a rider. Then, twelve years ago, the two branches of the Waggoner family that control the W. T. Waggoner estate, which in turn controls the ranch, locked themselves in a lawsuit no one can win. It comprises 520,000 acres in six counties, and is the home for 12,000 mother cows. FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) One of the largest ranches in the U.S. and an icon for Texas horse and cattlemen has been listed for $725 million, marking the end of a decades-long courtroom battle among. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Marketing is done through private treaty and production sales. and 283. At an early age, Dan started building what would become a ranching empire and founded the Waggoner Ranch in 1849. He kept the east side of the ranch, called White Face, for himself. The W.T. I think there were twenty-five or twenty-seven attorneys involved, he recalled. Neither of her parents came to the wedding; biographer Porter reports that E. Paul and Helen were having marital problems. The three smaller, 85,000-acre parcelsZacaweista, Four Corners, and Santa Rosawere gifts to his three children, Electra, Guy, and E. Paul. At the same time, they amended the bylaws to allow either party to give notice of termination within certain windows of timean amendment that would later prove crucial in the battle over the ranch. But there has been no substantial rain for days now, and we kick up a trail of dark red dust as we head toward Santa Rosa, the area that E. Paul inherited and where his daughter, the second Electra, grew up. This was probably a bluff. The ranch's wild steers, huge supply of . Thats the case that has been snaking through Judge Tom Neelys Forty-sixth District Court, in Wilbarger County, for these past twelve years. They say he was as mad as a nest of hornets. As Parker biographer Bill Neeley has noted, ethics and morality played no part of this business arrangement. The Big Pasture, however, remained available for grazing and hunting. By the 1880s, the Waggoners Victorian mansion, El Castile, was the most prominent structure in Decatur. Quietly and efficiently, Moore began to purge anyone friendly to the Wharton half of the trust: Jim Hughes, who most people had believed would succeed Biggs as trustee; Joe Roberson, the auditor who was being groomed as comptroller; Bill McBroom, the head of the oil division; and Ross Malone, the game warden. In 1879, the Waggoners foiled rustlers by changing their brand from the D-71 to the now-legendary three reverse Ds. There are several other large ponds, as well as hundreds of livestock ponds scattered throughout the property. In the lower draws and creek bottoms, hackberry and soapberry trees are common. They work six and sometimes seven days a week, from daylight until the job is done, often late at night. Please create an account or shop as a guest. [6], The ranch was originally established in 1852 near Vernon, Texas, by Daniel Waggoner under the name of Dan Waggoner & Son; his son being William Thomas Waggoner, who was an infant at the time. But the difference is that the cattle barons of the King Ranch led private, almost secretive lives, running their empire themselves and living on the land, while the Waggoners turned their ranch over to professionals, moved away, and pursued flamboyance. (Tom) Waggoner was heard to say, There I was with more than 5,000 big, wild steers, 50 sore-backed horses, $12 and 16 years of my life., In a 1956 article in The Quarter Horse Journal, Franklin Reynolds notes, It was possibly Tom Waggoners experiences with those sorry horses that caused him to resolve to always have good ones. Moreover, a sale would be taxed and so would the distribution of the money. Traveling to the Four Corners line camp, where Guy Waggoners great home once stood, I tried to imagine that day in the twenties when Anne Burnett Waggoner, the fifth of Guys eight wives, decided shed had enough. An enormous picture window with a panoramic view of the ranch replaced the porthole-size window of 1910. W.T. Can College Sports Get More Absurd Than SMU Joining the Pac-12? G. Besides receiving revenue from these house lot leases, the ranch charges a daily use fee for boating and fishing on these lakes and also controls concession rights. The farmers probably didnt need intimidating. But Buckys mother was not about to give up her sons inheritance without a fight. The Reversed 3Ds is still used as a symbol representing the historic Waggoner Ranch. The land was used primarily to raise crops, beef cattle and horses as well as for oil production. 510,527.00 Lake Kemp, a popular North Texas fishing and recreational site, is located approximately 40 miles west of Wichita Falls in Cara Blanca Park, the recreational park surrounding the lake. The wooded river and creek courses offer exceptional cover and desirable habitat for native game. In fact, when this ranch was first established, Abe Lincoln was in Congress, California was petitioning to join the U.S. as a free state, and neighboring Oklahoma was Indian Territory. Both were famous for breeding, the King Ranch for Santa Gertrudis cattle, the Waggoner Ranch for cutting horses. Moore astonished Bucky by trying to buy his stock in the estate. In 1869 Dan made seventeen-year-old W.T. Waggoner Estate Ranch. In a deposition filed with the court in 2001, Bucky acknowledged: We do not meet face to face, just he and I. The letters were typed by his secretary, Neely told me. How could things have spun so wildly out of control? 27 of 56 28 of 56 Cowboys on the Waggoner Ranch brand calves in the spring of 1983. We always meet with our employees present, and nothing is really handled. They have quarreled over which wells to cap or abandon, over control of the corporate airplane, over the purchase of bulls and the size of cow herds. Its like watching the death of a huge and magnificent animal: People cant bear to look, yet theyre powerless to turn away. In later years, W.T. hoped that his kids would learn to ranch and develop a sense of responsibility. E. Paul, a whiskey-drinking, poker-playing party animal, stayed married to his wife, Helen, for fifty years, but few people doubted the rumors that he kept mistresses in Mexico and South Texas. Jim Hughes, a longtime attorney for the Waggoner estate who was being groomed to become a trustee before the feud cost him the opportunity, slows down as a dozen or more wild turkeys scamper across the highway and disappear into thick stands of mesquite. 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Richard King and Captain James Walworth's King Ranch brand was registered June 27, 1859 3. The Municipal Airport at Wichita Falls is served by American Eagle, and the runway is 13,100 feet long. Buster received income from his share of the estate, but he had no role in the ranch management and was happy to leave the ranching to E. Paul. Subscribe Contact Us We love our customers, so feel free to visit during normal business hours. The ranch is fenced and crossfenced, with an estimated several thousand miles of ranch roads and ranch fencing. Today the ranch consists of approximately 535,000 acres, and is recognized as the largest ranch in Texas under one fence. There are none to be seen, because there is not a drop of groundwater. One thing you dont see on the ranch is windmills. Waggoner Ranch is a working one, with 20 cowboy camps scattered throughout the property to house the more than 120 workers. . Guy had a weakness for the ladies; he once skipped town with the lead actress from a traveling burlesque show. In May, Judge Neely heard the motion for partial summary judgment and made his ruling. After a time everyone seemed in agreement on all except one pointmaintenance of the dam at Santa Rosa Lake. The mesquite trees that now dominate the land arrived later, their seeds transported in cow droppings as herds from South Texas passed through on their way to railheads in Kansas. Waggoner Ranch, the 800-square-mile plot of land in North Texas, is really big. Our horses are American Quarter Horses and we raise them for our use on the ranch. They wintered the herd that year in Clay County and the following spring drove it to market, netting a profit of $55,000. A complete list of this inventory can be made available. Then he left the meeting and thats the last we heard. Copyright 2023 Waggoner Ranch Store - All Rights Reserved. When they presented the map to Gene, they say, he asked for more details. Dan took advantage of this great opportunity. At midnight, March 31, 2003, the clock ran out on the W. T. Waggoner trust. He ended up using it for cattle dip, and the well became Electras city dump., Near the entrance to Zacaweista, once the home of the first Electra, we stop at the grave of Poco Bueno. He was the first quarter horse ever to be insured for $100,000. After Biggs fell ill with cancer in the early seventies, Moore was essentially running things, and the boardwhich then consisted of Electra II and Buckyappointed him trustee after Biggs died, in 1975. Another number brand is placed on the left hip to denote the year. This is what shes good at, raising cattle. Hawley is 52 and has been at the ranch since 1972, working his way up from cowpuncher to straw boss to headquarters boss and finally to ranch manager. Perhaps they are afraid of ghosts. As land was cleared for settlement, he gradually moved west and by the late 1870s settled along Beaver Creek near Electra Texas. Gene has told people that the ranch would sell in no time, the whole 520,000 acres. He had grown up in Albuquerque, where his mother, the third of Buster Whartons four wives, had moved after their divorce, when Bucky was two. All-night parties that started at Shadowlawn sometimes ended up on the ranch, after a trip by private railroad car, so that Eastern dandies could be treated to the sights of cowboys branding and castrating calves. As previously noted, this massive holding spans six North Texas counties. (It still is, except for the magnificent Wise County courthouse.) The little village of Lockett, where the descendants of those settlers now live, is wet in another way: It is the nearest spot where citizens of Vernon can buy beer and liquor. But Gene and Helen seem determined to do just that. But W.T. This legendary horse was named the Grand Champion Stallion at Denvers National Western Stock Show, the Fort Worth Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show, the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, and the American Royal Livestock Show in Kansas City. This will still be ranchland, for thats all its fit to be, but not ranching on the grand scale that allows men to be cowboys. These are the men who made the ranch work while the Waggoners were off in Fort Worth or New York or Europe. The W.T. divided the ranch that he and his dad had founded into four large tracts. It doesnt seem real to even think about it, he says. [9], In August 2014, the ranch was listed on the real estate market with an asking price of US$725 million. The second Electra was, like her namesake, a globe-hopping socialite (she was once linked romantically to Cary Grant by Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons), but she also was an acclaimed artist, who knew all the celebrities of her day and sculpted busts of many of them. It is doubtful there is any other contiguous area of this magnitude in Texas which has had no commercial hunting pressure since the land was first settled. I guess you could say its traumatic, but in two or three days the calves will forget they ever had mamas, Weldon Hawley says in response to my city-boy question. In addition to land and cattle, the family owned five banks, three cottonseed mills, and a coal company. Skyfood Supermarket (six locations in New York) - Asian Oriental Supermarket. The nearly 30,000 acres of farmland is generally farmed in wheat for grazing, but Coastal Bermuda fields and haygrazer fields are baled and used to feed cattle and also to supply quality hay for the large horse operation. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Either way, your shopping cart will be active until you leave the store. The cowboys of the Waggoner Ranch are living legends, men who embody the attributes of the lean and dusty riders who braved the wild a century ago to make room for a herd. We have unique items that feature our brand. Copyright 2023 W. T. Waggoner Ranch Uptown Style WordPress theme by, 2013 Gelding (Cat Man Do X Smoked Diamonds), 2015 Stallion (Cat Man Do X Smokin and Swingin). Killen knew that Bucky was strapped with legal fees from the court battles of the sixties, Hughes told me. He sits across the table from me in his starched jeans and freshly shined boots, ramrod straight, his hat resting in his lap, his gray hair slicked down. Seymour, the county seat of Baylor County, is several miles south of the ranch, and has a runway that is 4,300 feet long. Yet the Waggoner Ranch has outlasted its South Texas rival in one respect: It is still under the direct control of its founding family. Potential buyers include a group of Japanese investors, Ross Perot Jr., Boone Pickens, even the Mormon churchor so go the rumors. $720,000,000 Under the terms of the trust, each of the children owned one third of the 100,000 shares in the estate, elected the board of directors of the trust and served on the board themselves, and retained their homesteads. All I ever knew is the Waggoner Ranch, he tells me. Mesquite is the major invader in this part of Texas. When it is necessary for them to be in the same room, they let third parties do the talking. Killen told Bucky, Take this, go back to New Mexico, and live your life. This iconic ranch property has been owned and operated by Waggoner heirs for approximately 165 years. W.T. But selling the ranchor, worse still, permitting the court to liquidate itwould cost both sides dearly in taxes and prestige. All during the spring and summer of 2003, they talked of little else. They gathered information on the value of individual pastures, with the help of foreman Jimmy Lee Smith. (and future trustees) would have the sole right to make all management decisions. The 1905 hunt was a classic Waggoner production. He knows the ranch, its cast of characters, and its skeletons and stories as well as any outsider. One morning she packed, jumped in her car, and headed for town, not bothering to stop and open any of the ten gates on the way. While drilling for water, W.T. Roosevelt remembered later: We broke into a lope a mile outside the limits, and by the time we struck the main street, the horses were on a run and we tore down like a whirlwind until we reached the train.. Thistle Hill, as Electras mansion was called, stands to this day on the crest of Summit Avenue, near downtown. Consequently, climate data can vary over such a large area of the state. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Our ranching operation includes, cattle, horses and the farm. No one, it seems, wants to witness the breakup of a mythic Texas ranchexcept the Waggoner heirs. The house eventually fell apart and was torn down. These cows are bred to Hereford, Angus, and Charolais bulls. In The American Quarter Horse Journal, Jim Jennings writes, The Waggoner contribution to the Quarter Horse industry has long been recognized. [3][14][15] It was ultimately sold in February 2016 to billionaire Stan Kroenke, the husband of Wal-Mart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke and current owner of the National Football League's Los Angeles Rams and the Premier League's Arsenal F.C. Members of American Quarter Horse Association, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, National Beef Council, Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, and the Texas Land and Mineral Owners Association. Employees of the Waggoner Ranch horse operation concentrate on raising horses for working ranch purposes and strive to create athletic and trainable horses that are 15-hands tall with outstanding conformation. PRIMARY USE cow-calf, feed yard, farming, horses, oil and gas, wild game hunting, birding . The W.T. Neither the Willinghams nor the Whartons have the funds to buy the other out. He offered to pay Buckys attorney fees and pitch in an extra one million. Currently, the ranch has a water well lease on a nearby offsite well, which furnishes livestock water through an extensive waterline network to the large block of farmland located on the northwest side of the ranch, and also to the main ranch headquarters. John and Electra had two daughtersa third Electra and Helen. [6] It has about 14,000 cows and bulls as well as 500 horses. (Tom) Waggoner was heard to say, There I was with more t, han 5,000 big, wild steers, 50 sore-backed horses, $12 and 16 years of my life.. Mrs. Biggs called ahead and had the director meet us on the front step. But for how much longer? Numerous large, functional and well designed sets of shipping and working pens are scattered throughout the ranch. Some whitetail deer on the Waggoner Ranch are estimated to be of Boone and Crockett quality. Now he lives in the bunkhouse. The main set of shipping pens are located along the highway at the Zacaweista Headquarters Division.
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