Farwell, Texas
Farwell, Parmer County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for John V. Farwell and C. B. Farwell. Builders of the Texas Capitol, 1882-1888, in exchange for three million acres of state land. Founders of the XIT Ranch, 1885. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The town of Farwell honors brothers John V. and C. B. Farwell, Chicago investors who financed the construction of the Texas State Capitol in the 1880s. In exchange for building the grand pink-granite statehouse, the syndicate received three million acres of Panhandle land — the empire that became the legendary XIT Ranch, founded in 1885. The town at the New Mexico line grew up on the edge of that vast holding.
Why it matters
Farwell marks one of the largest land-for-labor bargains in American history, the deal that both raised Texas's capitol and created the sprawling XIT, an icon of the cattle frontier.
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Related people
- · John V. Farwell
- · C. B. Farwell
Related events
- · Construction of the Texas State Capitol
- · Founding of the XIT Ranch
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bovina
Bovina, TX
Bovina began as the Hay Hook Line Camp of the legendary XIT Ranch, the three-million-acre spread Texas granted in payment for building its state capitol. When the Pecos & Northern Texas Railroad reached the site in 1898, cattle poured onto rail cars bound for eastern markets, and for a time this was one of the largest shipping points in the nation — cowhands called it "Bull Town" before the town chose the name Bovina in 1899. From a frontier line camp it grew into the market center of a rich irrigated-farming county.
Old Muleshoe Ranch Cookhouse
Muleshoe, TX
This ranch cookhouse was built in Parmer County around 1897 and hauled to the Muleshoe Ranch about 1902. Local lore holds that a Dodge City couple moving to Texas found a shoe thrown by a mule, kept it for luck, and used it as the ranch's branding iron—giving the outfit, and eventually the town, its name. The humble cookhouse survives as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
The XIT Ranch South Line
Muleshoe, TX
In 1879 the Texas Legislature set aside a vast three-million-acre tract in the Panhandle to pay for the construction of the state's grand new Capitol in Austin — trading empty land for a monument to government. Chicago investors, the Farwell brothers, financed the building and in return created the sprawling XIT Ranch, whose fenced boundaries became legendary across the plains. This marker stands at the ranch's old south line, the edge of one of the largest cattle operations the West ever saw.
Lazbuddie
Lazbuddie, TX
In 1902 Thomas Kelly bought more than 55,000 acres of the legendary XIT Ranch and built the Star Ranch, dotting the high plains with thirty windmills, corrals, and a schoolhouse. As the great ranch was carved into smaller farms, a community took root: D. Luther 'Laz' Green and Andrew 'Buddie' Sherley opened the Lazbuddie commissary in 1924, giving the town both its heart and its whimsical name. Post office, churches, schools, and grain elevators soon followed.