Renderbrook Ranch
Westbrook, Mitchell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded in buffalo and Indian days of 1870's by Taylor Barr. Owned 1882-1889 by D.H. and J.W. Snyder. They built "White House" headquarters; sold ranch, 1889, to Isaac L. Ellwood, an inventor of barbed wire, in DeKalb, Illinois. Ellwood paid in wire for Spade cattle from Donley County, to stock ranch. Added Sterling and Coke lands to original 130,000 acres; to distinguish this from range bought 1902 near Lubbock, called this Renderbrook (from name of spring where Indians shot a U.S. Cavalry officer in the 1870's). Ellwood heirs still run Spade brand on 2 ranches. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in the 1870s on the open range of West Texas, Renderbrook grew into a sprawling cattle operation that eventually covered well over a hundred thousand acres. In 1889 it passed to Isaac Ellwood, a partner in the barbed-wire industry that was fencing in the plains, who paid partly in wire and stocked the range with Spade-brand cattle. His heirs still run that brand, a rare thread of continuity from the era of the great ranches.
Why it matters
The ranch links two forces that transformed the West: the vast cattle empires and the barbed wire that fenced the open range and ended them.
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Related people
- · Isaac L. Ellwood
- · Taylor Barr
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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