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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1870s and 1880s, Texas had big ambitions and little cash. The state wanted a capitol building worthy of its size, but it had something far more plentiful than money: land. Huge stretches of the Panhandle, the high, flat, nearly treeless plains at the top of the state, were largely unsettled after the Plains Indian wars and the destruction of the buffalo herds.
So the state made a bargain that sounds almost unbelievable today. It would pay for a new capitol not in dollars but in acres, about three million of them in the far western Panhandle.
This was the age of the open range and the great cattle drives, and investors from the East and from Britain were pouring money into Western ranching. Railroads were pushing across the plains. A deal of this size could turn empty grassland into one of the largest cattle operations in the world.
People & events
The town takes its name from John V. Farwell and C. B. Farwell, brothers from Chicago who led the group that took on the job. Between 1882 and 1888, their syndicate built the Texas Capitol in Austin. In return, they received the three million acres of state land that made the whole scheme possible.
On that land they founded the XIT Ranch in 1885. It became legendary for its sheer scale: a ranch that stretched across a huge swath of the Panhandle, needed enormous lengths of fencing, and ran cattle by the tens of thousands. The origin of the XIT brand has been told in several ways, including a popular story that it stood for ten counties in Texas, but that tale is uncertain, and historians treat it as legend rather than settled fact.
Over time, the great ranch was broken up and sold in pieces to farmers and settlers, and towns grew on what had been its range. Farwell, right on the New Mexico line, is one of them. The marker was erected in 1936, during the celebrations of the Texas Centennial.
Its place in the American story
The Capitol deal is one of the most remarkable land-for-construction bargains in American history. It shows how states in the Gilded Age used their public lands as currency, trading territory for roads, railroads, and buildings they couldn't otherwise afford.
The XIT, meanwhile, became a symbol of the cattle kingdom, that brief, dramatic era when ranching on an industrial scale spread across the Great Plains. Its growth and later breakup follow the national story: first the open range, then fences and big corporate ranches, then small farms and towns as settlement filled in the West.
A single transaction produced both one of America's grandest state capitols and one of its most famous ranches. Farwell is the town that remembers the men behind it.
If you visit
Farwell sits right on the Texas-New Mexico line, and the landscape tells the story as well as any marker could. Look out over the flat, open high plains and try to imagine a single ranch covering territory on that scale.
It's a small town, so plan your trip around the big-sky scenery rather than a long list of attractions. Take your time with the marker, then drive the surrounding farm roads to get a feel for the land that once belonged to the XIT.
For a memorable Texas road trip, pair Farwell with a visit to the Capitol in Austin. Standing in front of that statehouse after seeing the country it was traded for connects the two ends of the story in a way few history lessons can.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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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
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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.