Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On February 15, 1877, a large number of stock raisers from northwest Texas assembled in the Young County Courthouse in Graham to address the problem of cattle rustling. Their solution was the creation of the "Stock-Raisers' Association of North-West Texas." The organization worked to promote the interests of stock raisers and initiated a system of tracking stray or stolen cattle. Names, marks, brands, locations of ranches, and addresses of individual stock raisers were made available to each member. C.L. (Kit) Carter of Palo Pinto County served as the association's first president. Other prominent cattlemen involved in the group's formative years were C.C. Slaughter, Samuel Burk Burnett, and James C. Loving. During the 1893 Annual Convention, membership in the organization was opened to the entire state, and its name was changed to the "Cattle Raisers Association of Texas." In the same year, Fort Worth became the location of its permanent headquarters. The current name was adopted in 1921, when the Panhandle and Southwestern Stockmen's Association joined the Texas organization. Throughout its history, the association has provided significant service and leadership to the cattle industry of Texas.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On February 15, 1877, ranchers from northwest Texas met in the Young County Courthouse in Graham to fight the cattle rustling plaguing the open range. They formed the Stock-Raisers' Association of North-West Texas, pooling brands, marks, and ranch records to track stolen stock. Growing into a statewide body headquartered in Fort Worth, it drew in cattle barons like C.C. Slaughter and Burk Burnett and became a lasting force in the Texas cattle industry.
Why it matters
Born of the lawless open range, this association helped bring order to the cattle kingdom that defined the American West and turned Fort Worth into a capital of the beef trade.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the 1870s, the cattle kingdom of Texas was booming — and lawless. The Civil War had left the state with vast herds of longhorns and, in the years after, the open range stretched across northwest Texas with few fences and fewer lawmen. Cattle grazed freely across enormous distances, identified only by the brands seared into their hides. It was the golden age of the trail drive, when Texas beef was pushed north to railheads and markets, and fortunes could be made on the hoof.
But open range and free-roaming cattle were an open invitation to theft. Rustling — the stealing and re-branding of another man's stock — was rampant, and a rancher could lose a significant share of his herd to it. In a country too big and too thinly settled for conventional law enforcement to reach, the men who owned the cattle faced a stark choice: organize, or be picked apart one steer at a time.
This was the Reconstruction and Gilded Age West, a place and time when private associations, not government, often supplied the order that a frontier society lacked. The cattlemen of northwest Texas were about to prove the point.
People & events
On February 15, 1877, a large number of stock raisers gathered in the Young County Courthouse in Graham to confront the rustling problem head-on. Their answer was to band together, forming the Stock-Raisers' Association of North-West Texas. The idea was elegantly practical: pool information. Members shared their names, marks, brands, ranch locations, and addresses, so that stolen or strayed cattle could be tracked and identified across the whole region. A thief who altered a brand now had a network working against him.
The men who built the organization were among the towering figures of the Texas range. C.L. "Kit" Carter of Palo Pinto County served as the first president. In its formative years the association drew in cattlemen whose names still echo across Texas — C.C. Slaughter, Samuel Burk Burnett, and James C. Loving among them — ranchers who ran vast operations and whose stake in ending the theft was enormous.
The organization grew with the industry it served. At the 1893 annual convention, membership was opened to the entire state and the group was renamed the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas; that same year, Fort Worth became its permanent headquarters. In 1921 it took its current name, the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, after the Panhandle and Southwestern Stockmen's Association joined it — a merger that extended its reach across an even wider swath of ranching country.
Its place in the American story
The story of this association is the story of how the Wild West stopped being wild. The image of the open range is central to American mythology, but that world could not function on romance alone — it needed order, and much of that order came not from marshals and courthouses but from the ranchers themselves organizing to protect their own. The tracking of brands and the sharing of records was frontier justice turned into a system.
That this enterprise put down its permanent roots in Fort Worth helped cement the city's identity as a capital of the cattle trade — the place where the industry did its business. The association became a lasting institution in an industry more often remembered for its transience, outliving the trail drives and the open range to serve Texas ranching well into the modern era.
More broadly, the association embodies a deeply American pattern: private citizens, facing a problem the government could not solve, banding together to solve it themselves. From the chaos of the post-war range, these cattlemen built one of the enduring institutions of the American West — proof that the cattle kingdom was governed not only by six-shooters but by ledgers, brand books, and organized cooperation.
If you visit
Fort Worth wears its cattle heritage proudly, and this marker sits at the center of that story. The city styles itself "Where the West Begins," and knowing that the great cattlemen's association made its home here adds real weight to that slogan. Use the marker as a lens: the beef trade that built much of this city was made possible by exactly the kind of organized cooperation it commemorates.
Pair a stop here with the broader experience of Fort Worth's ranching legacy. The city's historic stockyards district and its celebration of cattle-drive history bring the era to life, and this marker supplies the deeper why behind the spectacle — the unglamorous but essential work of tracking brands and outsmarting rustlers that kept the whole industry viable.
As you read the names — Kit Carter, Slaughter, Burnett, Loving — remember that these were real men running real herds across a country with almost no fences. Standing in modern Fort Worth, it takes some imagination to picture the open range they were fighting to protect, but that leap is exactly what makes the visit rewarding.
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
- · C.L. 'Kit' Carter
- · C.C. Slaughter
- · Samuel Burk Burnett
- · James C. Loving
Themes & tags
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