In our latest offering, Western Horseman Books explores the cowboys, horses, history and traditions of North America's greatest ranches. From the arid grasslands of Arizona to the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, these cowboys have been ranching in time-honored ways for more than 100 years. The cowboys are still horseback, gathering, sorting and branding, just as those who came before them, and the horses they ride are as strong and rugged as the land they travel. Complete with stunning photography and compelling stories that trace history from the late 1800s through today. FEatured ranches: Adams, Babbitt, Bell, Crago, CS, Dragging Y, Four Sixes, Gang, Haythorn, O RO, Pitchfork, Stuart, Waggoner.
Loyal to the Land is a sweeping history of one of the United States' largest working ranches, the Big Island of Hawaii's Parker Ranch. Dr. Bergin chronicles the ranch from its establishment on two acres purchased for ten dollars by John Palmer Parker to the years following World War II and the beginning of a new era of family ranch management under Parker’s grandson, Richard Smart. In this wide-ranging and insightful book, illustrated with more than 250 historical photos, Dr. Bergin first discusses the important Hispanic vaquero roots of ranching in Hawaii. He then relates the histories of the five foundation families, providing rich and detailed information on key members who contributed to the Ranch's success. The balance of the book examines every aspect of Parker Ranch development: management, labor, improvements and diversification of livestock, veterinary and animal care programs, and the Ranch’s role and influence on the Big Island and the state.
A unique volume of information and colorful anecdotes about historic ranches, located throughout the American West. In all, almost sixty ranches are profiled, covering twelve states. From the King Ranch in Texas, to the Hash Knife in Arizona, Bill O'Neal tells the history, color and lore of these legendary ranches. O'Neal is a noted Western historian who has written seventeen books and more than 400 articles and book reviews. He has always been captivated by the mystique of the vanished ranching frontier and now he has brought that mystique and lore to life.
Among the famous ranch brands of Texas are the T Anchor, JA, Diamond Tail, 777, Bar C, and XIT. And the greatest of these was XIT—The XIT Ranch of Texas. It was not the first ranch in West Texas, but after its formation in the eighteen-eighties it became the largest single operation in the cow country of the Old West and covered more than three million acres, all fenced. The state of Texas patented this huge rectangle of land, at the time considered by many to be part of "the great American desert," to the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company of Chicago, in exchange for funds to erect the state capitol building in Austin. This "desert" became a legend in the cattle business, and it remains today a memory to thousands who recall the era when mustangs and longhorns grazed beneath the brand of the XIT. The development and operation of this pastoral enterprise and its relation to the history of Texas is the subject of this great and widely discussed book by J. Evetts Haley, now made available to readers every· where. It is the story of a wild prairie, roamed by Indians, buffalo, mustangs, and antelope, that became a country of railroads, oil fields, prosperous farms, and carefully bred herds of cattle. The XIT Ranch of Texas is the epic account of a ranching operation about which many know a little but only a few very much. It is the one volume that, more than any other, portrays the early-day cattle business of the West.
A collage of characters shaped the west of the nineteenth century. Large and powerful cattlemen, backed by eastern and European investors, flooded the prairie with herds often numbering 50-80 thousand head. They had visions of doubling or tripling their money quickly while their cattle grazed on the free grass of the open range. Others, like Martin Gothberg wisely invested in the future of the young frontier. Starting with a humble 160-acre homestead in 1885, he continued to expand and develop a modest ranch that eventually included tens of thousands of acres of deeded land. Gothberg’s story parallels the history of open range cattle ranches, cowboys, roundups, homesteaders, rustlers, sheep men and range wars. It does not end there. As the Second Industrial Revolution escalated in the late 1800s, so did the demand for petroleum products. What began with a demand for beef to feed the hungry cities of the eastern United States fostered the demand for wool to clothe them and graduated into a demand for oil to warm them in winter and fuel the mechanized age of the twentieth century. All were a critical part of shaping American history. Through the lens of this family saga—a part of the history of the West comes to life in the hands of this storyteller and historian.
Cowboys of the historic Waggoner Ranch are living legends.They are men who embody the attributes of dusty riders who braved the wild a century ago. The cowboys ride a vast ranch, the largest in the United States within one fence. The 510,772-acre ranch, a couple of hours northwest of Dallas/Fort Worth, was established in 1854, only nine years after Texas joined the Union. Jeremy Enlow was granted rare access to photograph the twenty-six cowboys who ride the trails of their forebearers, living a life and practicing skills that have almost disappeared. It is important to record their lives before they shut the gate behind them the last time. This book is a tribute to the cowboys of the Waggoner Ranch.
The thin morning fog, hanging over the sage and bluestem, obscures the trucks and trailers around the pens at Peek Trap. The sun, edging above the horizon, draws the eye from modernity toward something more durable. A whinny in the distance sharpens your focus on a band of shadow cast by a low bluff. The first few horses run into the new light, and the rest of the remuda emerges, strung out along the base of the bluff, nine dozen geldings running parallel to the horizon a quarter mile out. Another day begins. A day that has endured over a century in character. Welcome to the Waggoner Ranch.
The Texas state constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres of public land in the Texas Panhandle in exchange for construction of the state’s monumental red-granite capitol in Austin. That land became the XIT Ranch, briefly one of the most productive cattle operations in the West. The story behind the legendary XIT Ranch, told in full in this book, is a tale of Gilded Age business and politics at the very foundation of the American cattle industry. The capitol construction project, along with the acres that would become XIT, went to an Illinois syndicate led by men influential in politics and business. Unable to sell the land, the Illinois group, backed by British capital, turned to cattle ranching to satisfy investors. In tracing their efforts, which expanded to include a satellite ranch in Montana, historian Michael M. Miller demythologizes the cattle business that flourished in the late-nineteenth-century American West, paralleling the United States’ first industrial revolution. The XIT Ranch came into being and succeeded, Miller shows, only because of the work of accountants, lawyers, and managers, overseen by officers and a board of seasoned international capitalists. In turn, the ranch created wealth for some and promoted the expansion of railroads, new towns, farms, and jobs. Though it existed only from 1885 to 1912, from Texas to Montana the operation left a deep imprint on community culture and historical memory. Describing the Texas capitol project in its full scope and gritty detail, XIT cuts through the popular portrayal of great western ranches to reveal a more nuanced and far-reaching reality in the business and politics of the beef industry at the close of America’s Gilded Age.
