William Henry Bush
Amarillo, Potter County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1849 - 1931) The Frying Pan Ranch was founded in 1881 by Amarillo pioneer Henry Sanborn and J.F. Glidden, the inventor of barbed wire. The partnership was dissolved in 1894. Glidden sold the ranch to his son-in-law, W.H. Bush, who later endowed the free library and park in his birthplace, Martinsburg, New York. Bush was a patron of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Amarillo Public Library. His gift of land in 1900 established the site of St. Anthony's Hospital. The Round Up House built in 1926 was a present to his daughter, Emeline, on her sixteenth birthday. (1984)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Frying Pan Ranch was founded in 1881 by Amarillo pioneer Henry Sanborn and J. F. Glidden, the inventor of barbed wire whose fences helped tame the open range. When the partnership ended, Glidden sold the ranch to his son-in-law W. H. Bush, who became a noted philanthropist—endowing libraries and parks, patronizing the Art Institute of Chicago, and donating the land for Amarillo's St. Anthony's Hospital. His 1926 "Round Up House" was a birthday gift to his daughter Emeline.
Why it matters
Bush and his father-in-law's barbed wire link the fencing of the Panhandle frontier to the Gilded Age wealth and civic giving that built the institutions of a young Western city.
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Related people
- · William Henry Bush
- · Henry Sanborn
- · J. F. Glidden
- · Emeline Bush
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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