John Simpson Chisum left a trail across the American West so wide that a blind scout could follow it. His life story seems to have been defined by his association with Billy the Kid and a singular, epic cattle drive across the barren expanses of West Texas to New Mexico.
John Chisum was a legendary figure of the Old West. During the 1850s Chisum recognized opportunity in the fledgling range cattle industry, and within a few years his herds numbered in the tens of thousands. His empire stretched across New Mexico and he was a central figure in the Lincoln County War.
the true story of the greatest pastoral landholder in modern history As a barely literate youth of thirteen, Sidney Kidman ran away from home and worked as an odd-job boy in a grog shanty in outback Australia. He went on to become the greatest pastoral landholder in modern history, acquiring a legendary reputation both at home and abroad as the Cattle King. Kidman was much more than a grazier. In addition to his many successful business ventures and his contributions to the war effort, he was driven by a grand plan for the remote arid areas of Australia. this kept him locked in a battle with the land - and against drought. Wealth, power, fame and honours did not change Sidney Kidman. He remained the homespun, gregarious bushman for whom men worked with an almost savage loyalty. Greatly admired, he also had many enemies, and in his later years was dogged by controversies and untruths. this book explores the fascinating Kidman legend, and gives a balanced, thoroughly entertaining account of this larger-than-life Australian and his exceptional achievements. 'An addictive read, embracing the romance of the bush and the hardship of the outback.' SUNDAY tIMES
In this tribute to a pioneer conservationist, Duane M. Leach celebrates the life of an exceptional ranch manager on a legendary Texas ranch, a visionary for wildlife and modern ranch management, and an extraordinarily dedicated and generous man. Caesar Kleberg went to work on the King Ranch in 1900. For almost thirty years he oversaw the operations of the sprawling Norias division, a vast acreage in South Texas where he came to appreciate the importance of rangeland not only for cattle but also for wildlife. Creating a wildlife management and conservation initiative far ahead of its time, Kleberg established strict hunting rules and a program of enlightened habitat restoration. Because of his efforts and foresight, by his death in 1946 there were more white-tailed deer, wild turkey, bobwhite quail, javelinas, and mourning dove on the King Ranch than in the rest of the state. Kleberg’s legacy lives on at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute in Kingsville, where a research program he helped found has gained recognition far beyond the pastures of Norias.
Born during the infant years of the Texas Republic, C. C. Slaughter (1837–1919) participated in the development of the southwestern cattle industry from its pioneer stages to the modern era. Trail driver, Texas Ranger, banker, philanthropist, and cattleman, he was one of America’s most famous ranchers. David J. Murrah’s biography of Slaughter, now available in paperback, still stands as the definitive account of this well-known figure in Southwest history. A pioneer in West Texas ranching, Slaughter increased his holdings from 1877 to 1905 to include more than half a million acres of land and 40,000 head of cattle. At one time “Slaughter country” stretched from a few miles north of Big Spring, Texas, northwestward two hundred miles to the New Mexico border west of Lubbock. His father, brothers, and sons rode the crest of his popularity, and the Slaughter name became a household word in the Southwest. In 1873—almost ten years before the “beef bonanza” on the open range made many Texas cattlemen rich—C. C. Slaughter was heralded by a Dallas newspaper as the “Cattle King of Texas.” Among the first of the West Texas cattlemen to make extensive use of barbed wire and windmills, Slaughter introduced new and improved cattle breeds to West Texas. In his later years, greatly influenced by Baptist minister George W. Truett of Dallas, Slaughter became a major contributor to the work of the Baptist church in Texas. He substantially supported Baylor University and was a cofounder of the Baptist Education Commission and Dallas’s Baylor Hospital. Slaughter also cofounded the Texas Cattle Raisers’ Association (1877) and the American National Bank of Dallas (1884), which through subsequent mergers became the First National Bank. His banking career made him one of Dallas’s leading citizens, and at times he owned vast holdings of downtown Dallas property.
“The best all-around study of the American cowboy ever written. Every page crackles with keen analysis and vivid prose about the Old West. A must-read!” —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America The open-range cattle era lasted barely a quarter century, but it left America irrevocably changed. Cattle Kingdom reveals how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We meet a diverse cast, from cowboy Teddy Blue to failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. This is a revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made. “Cattle Kingdom is the smartly told account of rampant capitalism making its home—however destructive and decidedly unromantic—on the range. . . . [A] fresh and winning perspective.” —The Dallas Morning News “Knowlton writes well about all the fun stuff: trail drives, rambunctious cow towns, gunfights and range wars . . . [He] enlists all of these tropes in support of an intriguing thesis: that the romance of the Old West arose upon the swelling surface of a giant economic bubble . . . Cattle Kingdom is The Great Plains by way of The Big Short.” —Wall Street Journal “Knowlton deftly balances close-ups and bird’s-eye views. We learn countless details . . . More important, we learn why the story played out as it did.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best one-volume history of the legendary era of the cowboy and cattle empires in thirty years.” —True West “Vastly informative.” —Library Journal “Absorbing.” —Publishers Weekly
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... (6) Columns for Discount on Purchases and Discount on Notes on the same side of the Cash Book; (c) Columns for Discount on Sales and Cash Sales on the debit side of the Cash Book; (d) Departmental columns in the Sales Book and in the Purchase Book. Controlling Accounts.--The addition of special columns in books of original entry makes possible the keeping of Controlling Accounts. The most common examples of such accounts are Accounts Receivable account and Accounts Payable account. These summary accounts, respectively, displace individual customers' and creditors' accounts in the Ledger. The customers' accounts are then segregated in another book called the Sales Ledger or Customers' Ledger, while the creditors' accounts are kept in the Purchase or Creditors' Ledger. The original Ledger, now much reduced in size, is called the General Ledger. The Trial Balance now refers to the accounts in the General Ledger. It is evident that the task of taking a Trial Balance is greatly simplified because so many fewer accounts are involved. A Schedule of Accounts Receivable is then prepared, consisting of the balances found in the Sales Ledger, and its total must agree with the balance of the Accounts Receivable account shown in the Trial Balance. A similar Schedule of Accounts Payable, made up of all the balances in the Purchase Ledger, is prepared, and it must agree with the balance of the Accounts Payable account of the General Ledger." The Balance Sheet.--In the more elementary part of the text, the student learned how to prepare a Statement of Assets and Liabilities for the purpose of disclosing the net capital of an enterprise. In the present chapter he was shown how to prepare a similar statement, the Balance Sheet. For all practical...
An easily accessible and comprehensive summary of current studies on the Canadian ranching frontier. This collection of essays provides an excellent perspective on the latest developments in the historiography of the range, drawing from topics such as Wild West shows, artistic depictions of the cowboy, and the economic and practical aspects of early cattle ranching. The essays anthologized here fall into three general areas: the working cowboy, the performing cowboy and the imaginary cowboy, and the academics, ranchers, poets and cowboys who authored them hail from backgrounds as diverse as history, geography, political science, and literature. This book makes an important contribution to the study of the ranching frontier, and will continue to be of value to researchers and readers of western history, plains studies and historical geography.