Legend of buffalo hunter Causey lives on No story of the High Plains would be complete without mentioning T.L. “George” Causey, for whom Causey, New Mexico was named. Causey was a rancher, freighter, and most famously, a buffalo hunter. It was his heavy wagons and ox teams hauling hides to market that made the Portales Road more easily followed by travelers on the Llano Estacado. In the 1860s, Causey hauled supplies to the army outposts in Kansas with a mule team. He soon formed a buffalo hunting outfit and began following the herds as they moved southward into Texas on their annual migration. In 1877, Causey bought the water rights at Yellow House near the present site of Littlefield, Texas, and established a permanent buffalo hunting camp there. “George Causey did most of the killing with a .45-90-caliber buffalo gun that was so heavy he had to use a rest stick to hold it up,” according the Causey’s nephew, V.H. Whitlock, He also quotes Causey’s partner, Jeff Jefferson, as saying, “Causey killed more buffaloes in one winter on the Yellow Houses than Buffalo Bill Cody killed in his entire lifetime. But Causey didn’t have Ned Buntline for a publicity agent.” Causey sold his rights at Yellow House to Jim Newman in 1882 and established a ranch at Ranger Lake, where he dug some of the first shallow wells on the High Plains. After selling this place, he moved on to a location between the present cities of Hobbs and Lovington, where he ran cattle under the JHB brand....