Last Great Panhandle Cattle Drive to Montana
White Deer, Carson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Each Spring and Summer after 1880, many Texas herds went up the trail to Northern states for fattening. For the cowboys, trail drives meant hard work. They had to turn stampedes, ford rivers and quicksand streams, and fight Indians and cattle thieves. They endured hunger, thirst, and other physical hardships. The Last Great Texas Panhandle Drive was organized here at N Bar N (N-N) Headquarters. Ranch manager was J.L. Harrison; trail boss T.L. (Tom) Coffee. 100 cowboys drove 10 herds, each with 2500 cattle, or a total of 25,000 beeves, to Montana from April to September 1892. The cattle belonged to Niedringhaus Brothers, German tinsmiths of St. Louis, who put into ranching a fortune made in enamel granite household wares. From 1882 to1886, N Bar N leased range in Carson and neighboring counties from the Francklyn Land & Cattle Company, a British syndicate backed by Cunard Steamship Line. Afterward this range belonged to White Deer Land Company. The N Bar N outfit left here because White Deer Land Company wanted the range cleared of large herds. By 1907 the 650,000 acres of its land was offered for sale to small ranchers and farmers. It was fenced and the steam plow introduced to turn the rich, grassy sod.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Each spring after 1880, Texas herds streamed north to fatten on distant grasslands, and in 1892 the N Bar N outfit staged the last of the great Panhandle drives from this headquarters. Under manager J. L. Harrison and trail boss Tom Coffee, a hundred cowboys pushed ten herds—25,000 head in all—clear to Montana between April and September. The cattle belonged to the Niedringhaus brothers, St. Louis tinsmiths who had poured an enamelware fortune into ranching, on range once leased from a British-backed syndicate.
Why it matters
This marker fixes the closing moment of the open-range cattle drive, an icon of the American West soon fenced off by barbed wire, land companies, and the steam plow.
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Related people
- · J. L. Harrison
- · Tom Coffee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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