Old Surratt Territory
Morton, Cochran County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Once encompassing more than 33,000 acres, the area known locally as the Old Surratt Territory is representative of the late-19th century settlement and ranching history of the vast grasslands of the Texas Panhandle. Marshall Surratt (1849-1927), an East Texas native who settled in Waco and became a prominent attorney and district judge, purchased the 53 sections of land in 1885. Although the territory was known by his name, Judge Surratt never lived in Cochran County; he leased the acreage to the Jumbo Cattle Company. Operated by brothers Nick and John Beal and John Beal's brother-in-law, F. G. Oxsheer, the Jumbo was one of a number of large ranching operations, including those owned by such famous cattlemen as C. C. Slaughter and George Littlefield, that thrived despite several years of winter blizzards and summer droughts. Wells and windmills were located throughout the Surratt Territory to provide reliable water sources for the herds of cattle roaming its plains. The early history of Cochran County settlement is the history of its ranching. The census of 1890 revealed no permanent residents; in 1900 ranchers working in the county accounted for its population of 25, and by 1920 the figure had risen to 67. As free range ranching gave way to the fenced pastures of large syndicates and smaller family farms and ranches, the once vast ranch lands were divided. These smaller operations resulted in a division of lands and a surge in population, as reflected by the 1930 census figure of 1,963. Purchased by a succession of absentee landowners after 1900, the Surratt Territory remained intact until 1953. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Spanning more than 33,000 acres, the Old Surratt Territory typified the open-range ranching that first settled the vast grasslands of the Texas Panhandle. Waco judge Marshall Surratt bought the land in 1885 but never lived there, leasing it to the Jumbo Cattle Company whose windmilled wells watered herds alongside famous outfits run by cattlemen like C. C. Slaughter and George Littlefield. As barbed wire and smaller family farms replaced the open range, the county's population surged from a mere handful in 1900 to nearly two thousand by 1930.
Why it matters
The Surratt Territory charts the classic arc of the American West—from absentee-owned open range worked by big cattle syndicates to fenced pastures and family farms that finally populated the plains.
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Related people
- · Marshall Surratt
- · C. C. Slaughter
- · George Littlefield
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Slaughter Ranch Headquarters
Morton, TX
This was the working heart of the pioneering C.C. Slaughter Ranch, a 246,669-acre spread across Cochran and Hockley counties assembled by Col. C.C. Slaughter—a Texas leader in ranching, banking, and religion—between 1898 and 1901. The first headquarters was a humble half-dugout, but in 1915 the Slaughter cattle company brought workers from Mexico to build this adobe-and-concrete quadrangle in the form of a Spanish hacienda. It stood among the finest Texas ranch buildings of its day.
Former Whiteface Hotel
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Realtor William E. Flenniken put up this hotel in 1926 as the first brick building in Whiteface, raised to house prospective buyers when Cochran County opened for sale in small tracts. It stood at the center of the land rush that peopled this corner of the South Plains. In 1968 the J.S. Noel estate gave the building to Girlstown, U.S.A., for the use of its management.
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Cochran County was created in 1876 and named for Robert Cochran, a New Jersey native who died defending the Alamo in 1836. Settlement came slowly on this remote plain — the 1900 census counted just 25 cowboys — until the county finally organized in 1924 with Morton as its seat. Oil discovery and irrigated farming then drove rapid growth, and its Silver Lake had been known to early Spanish explorers as Laguna Quemado.
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Carved out in 1876 and named for Henderson Yoakum — the only Texas county named for an author — this corner of the West Texas plains was so remote that only buffalo hunters and scattered ranchers ventured through until after 1900. The sale of state lands drew homesteaders, the county organized in 1907, and the 1935 discovery of oil finally brought industry and population to a place long defined by its frontier isolation.