J. S. Means Ranch House
Andrews, Andrews County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1900, this is one of the oldest houses in Andrews County. S. H. Purcell, his wife, and two relatives each filed on a section of public land, building this home where section-corners met, so that each individual could fulfill the legal requirement to live on his claim. Soon after proving their claims, they sold out to Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Means, who then (1904) owned 14 sections. Adding much more land, the Means family established a very successful working ranch. It continues to run cattle, even though the range has contained oil fields since the 1920s. (1974)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1900, this is among the oldest houses in Andrews County, raised at the exact point where four claimants' land sections met so each could satisfy the legal requirement to live on his claim. After the group proved up their claims, they sold to Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Means, who by 1904 held fourteen sections and kept adding land to build a thriving cattle ranch. The operation ran cattle even after oil fields spread across the range in the 1920s.
Why it matters
The house is a monument to the clever, cooperative homesteading strategies of the West Texas plains — and to the cattle-then-oil layering that shaped the region's economy.
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Related people
- · J. S. Means
- · S. H. Purcell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Original Townsite of Andrews
Andrews, TX
When Andrews County was organized in 1910, the new town of Andrews rose on land homesteaded by Robert Madison "Bob" Means, who had begun ranching the West Texas plains with his father in 1899. In a colorful county-seat fight against rival Shafter City, Means famously deeded town lots to local cowboys so they could register as voters and swing the election. He served as county clerk and gave land and money to the growing town for the rest of his life, retiring comfortably after oil was struck on his land in 1934.
Early Settlers of Andrews County
Andrews, TX
Andrews County sat on one of Texas's last frontiers, where Anglo settlement lagged some sixty years behind the rest of the state because of Comanche resistance and a punishing scarcity of water. O. B. Holt filed the first land claim in 1886, and hardy families like the Cowdens and Peter Von Holebeke followed, but by 1900 the county still counted only 87 people and did not organize until 1910. Windmill pumps and drift fences finally made ranching workable on the dry plains, and the 1930 discovery of oil turned decades of stubborn endurance into sudden prosperity.
"C" Ranch House
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Purchased in 1883 by Chicago meatpacker Nelson Morris, this was the first privately owned land in the Midland area, known then as the Chicago Ranch. It boasted the first wire fence and windmill in West Texas and, by the marker's account, one of the world's largest herds of Black Angus cattle. Its innovations helped open the arid plains to large-scale ranching.
Goldsmith
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Goldsmith sprang to life as an oil field on June 14, 1935, when the discovery well gushed 1,140 barrels of crude a day and shacks and tents soon housed 350 people. First platted as Ector City by Harry L. Tucker in 1937 and later renamed for landowner C. A. Goldsmith, the boomtown quickly gained cafes, a hospital, movie theater, hotels, and a newspaper—though its lone bath was a 25-cent shower from an overhead tank. It endures today as a gas processing and distribution center.