One of the best perks about being a cow
writer has been that it served as a gateway to visit many of the biggest
and best ranches in America. The highlight came when I got to sleep in
the legendary Big House at the King Ranch and dine at a table whose
centerpiece was a big silver bowl awarded in 1943 to the seventh Triple
Crown winner in history, the King Ranch's own Assault.
During
a time when many cowboys are without cows and anyone with a good sized
flower garden calls itself a "ranch", I got to visit ranches in West
Texas that were measured in sections, not acres, and anything less than
40 sections was considered a hobby farm. I climbed all over Arizona's
big spreads like the ORO's, Pruett and Wray and John Wayne's 26 Bar.
I've written about many of California's old land grant ranches and find
it sad that I can think of only one that's still in the same family it
was granted to. I got to ride out with the cowboys for a branding on the
Bell Ranch in New Mexico. At night we slept in our bedrolls and they
told me to cover by boots with my cowboy hat so snakes or scorpions
wouldn't climb in them and surprise me the next morning.
Every
year I got to go to Nebraska's Haythorn Ranch for a video sale and in
Oregon I got to visit and write stories about Oregon's MC and part of
Peter French's former empire. As part of Western Video Market I also got
to take part in selling the cattle off many of the biggest spreads in
the west like the 1,000 head lot of ZX calves we auctioned off in a
grand total of 31 seconds.
I've always
been awed by the great cattle barons in history like Henry Miller of
Miller and Lux who, it was said, could ride in his buggy from southern
California into British Colombia and sleep on his own land every night.
It was also said of the notorious tightwad that not once along the way
would he eat his own beef because the beef he ate always wore a
neighbor's brand.
I
rode over ground once known as Swan Land and Cattle that was owned by a
bunch of Scotsmen that covered 3,250,000 acres and had so many brands
they had their own brand book. And I live within a couple hours drive
from the epicenter of what was once known as the Kern County Land
Company that operated in multiple states and was the largest ranch in
the world at its height with 3,750,000 acres under its control. Folks
around here just called it "the Land Company" and everyone knew who you
were talking about.
When we lived in
New Mexico I often found myself on ground once owned by Maxwell Cattle
Company that had 1,750,000 acres in New Mexico and Colorado and was so
large the Atchison and Topeka Railroad had six stations on the ranch.
The Chiricahua Cattle Company was on the San Carlos Apache Reservation
and ran 45,000 head of cattle at one time! They were known simply as
"the Cherries". I always wondered how they could possibly run on so many
acres or look after so many cows. I was always of the belief that you
should never run more cows than your wife could take care of.
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