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(Waggoner) hit oil instead. It would be Helens husband, Gene Willingham, who would one day become Bucky Whartons main opponent in the struggle over the Waggoner Ranch. cattle inventory, horse inventory, horse facilities, brands . Salt cedar is found along creek and river courses, and cedar is moderate to dense in the rougher, eroded areas of the ranch. Numerous large, functional and well designed sets of shipping and working pens are scattered throughout the ranch. Not a shred, she told me. The party bagged seventeen wolves (some of which were really coyotes), and the president beat a five-foot rattlesnake to death with his quirt. I cant sit down, never could, he tells me. All pens are very well maintained. Its been vacant ever since. All during the spring and summer of 2003, they talked of little else. They communicate by written memos, even though their offices are separated by only a few feet. After a big wedding in Decatur, the couple honeymooned in Europe and then planned to settle in Philadelphia. To Buckys surprise, the Biggs family responded by filing suit, asking the court to liquidate the estate. But Gene and Helen seem determined to do just that. They wintered the herd that year in Clay County and the following spring drove it to market, netting a profit of $55,000. That became the seed money for the Waggoner empire. A municipal waterline from nearby Seymour serves some of the homes located at Lake Kemp. Its now the residence of Gene and Helen Willingham. He didnt want to sell the ranch, but he thought it could be divided, that a line could be drawn on a map so that each side would have a separate but equal share. Choose from multiple print sizes and hundreds of frame and mat options. Since Electra IIs death, in 2001, the board has been composed of these two men who rarely speak to each other. Waggoner Estate Ranch and related assets are now, for the first time ever, being offered for sale at a guideline listed price of. Historically, potable drinking water has been an issue on the Waggoner Ranch, and for that matter, on many other ranches in this area of North Texas. Stretching across six North Texas counties, the Waggoner Ranch is considered to be extremely well located. As it turned out, he didnt. Waggoner Estate Ranch and related assets are now, for the first time ever, being offered for sale at a guideline listed price of $725,000,000. He was a nineteen-year-old Army sergeant at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when he learned that the lawsuits had been resolved and that he was heir to 50 percent of the W. T. Waggoner estate. S. Middleton & Son in Lubbock are honored to announce the exclusive offering of the historic W.T. As Smith put it, They were a beer-and-champagne twosome.. The second Electra was, like her namesake, a globe-hopping socialite (she was once linked romantically to Cary Grant by Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons), but she also was an acclaimed artist, who knew all the celebrities of her day and sculpted busts of many of them. The W.T. [6] Thirty cowboys, and about 120 people overall, are employed on the property. Ranches, Farms and Land forsale in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas. [10], By 1909, W.T. On the other three sides are a number of buildings constructed of identical reddish-brown stone, quarried on the eastern part of the ranch. Heath@WaggonerRanch.com The Texanist: Why Dont Texas Houses Have Basements? A granite marker, weighing four tons, notes his grave site. Before the day is done, well spot hundreds of deer and numerous herds of feral hogs, fifty or sixty in a bunch, wee piglets scurrying to keep up. This well-renowned offering includes the 510,527 contiguous acres, together with all permanent improvements, approximately 41.67% of the mineral estate, all water rights, and all wind generation royalty rights. The cost of buying out Guys third of the estate had put a crimp in the flow of dividends, and Buster was running short of money. Bickering and backstabbing have been a way of life in the family. She hosted parties of celebrities, movie stars, and barons of capitalism, including the daughter of J. P. Morgan. The little village of Lockett, where the descendants of those settlers now live, is wet in another way: It is the nearest spot where citizens of Vernon can buy beer and liquor. [13] He once played there with polo champion Cecil Smith. The many improvements and related assets mentioned above combine to offer the purchaser an extremely attractive depreciation schedule. Now he lives in the bunkhouse. Even the water in Beaver Creek was reda sign, Bucky said, that it was fresh and contained no gypsum. They work six and sometimes seven days a week, from daylight until the job is done, often late at night. Many thousands of additional acres of native pasture are suitable for cultivation, if desired. This legendary horse was named the Grand Champion Stallion at Denvers National Western Stock Show, the Fort Worth Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show, the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, and the American Royal Livestock Show in Kansas City. Dan sent Tom (his son), who was only 16 years old at the time, to Kansas City with a herd of 5,000 steers. In one last attempt to keep the range open, W.T. 1700 Deaf Smith St., Vernon, TX 76384, US. The house eventually fell apart and was torn down. A unified decision has now been made by the shareholders to sell this legendary ranch. Nothing is too trivial to spark an argument. Waggoner Ranch is, the five-time winner of the Texas Ranch Roundup and a recipient of the American Quarter Horse Associations Best of the Remuda Award.. Quanah saw his alliance with the Waggoners and other cattle barons as a way to better the lives of his peopleand his own to boot. The ranch originally operated under the name of Dan Waggoner & Son. I ask him what he thinks of the family feud that threatens to end the way of life that he knew. [6][12], When Guy Waggoner died in 1950, his sons sold their share of the estate to members of the family. He pointed to an impenetrable thicket of mesquite and told me, Thirty years ago we cleared that pasture, all the way to Beaver Creek. As Parker biographer Bill Neeley has noted, ethics and morality played no part of this business arrangement. An enormous picture window with a panoramic view of the ranch replaced the porthole-size window of 1910. Texas Almanac Rainfall Records show the lowest annual rainfall for this six county area is in Foard and Knox Counties, at 24 inches and 26 inches per year, respectively. We have unique items that feature our brand. After her husband died, Electra II did not keep up the pressure on Bucky, as John Biggs and Killen Moore had done. Land Broker and Land Appraisalfirm established in 1920. Bucky wanted the ranch to be divided, not liquidated. Today the ranch consists of approximately 535,000 acres, and is recognized as the largest ranch in Texas under one fence. Wichita Falls, the county seat of Wichita County, is approximately 20 miles east of the eastern boundary of the ranch. Depending upon weather and moisture conditions, the ranch has been operated with 11,000 14,000 mother cows, plus calves, bulls and replacements; however, due to the recent drought, and in order to protect the ranch, current stocking rates have been reduced to around 7,000 mother cows/calves, plus replacements and bulls. I tried college in Vernon for a little while, but it wasnt for me. After that, negotiations were dead in the water. Gene remembered it differently. Over the years, a substantial amount of brush work has been done, and the mesquite canopy ranges from nearly extinct to moderate over portions of the ranch. Moreover, a sale would be taxed and so would the distribution of the money. Who was going to be responsible for it? But selling the ranchor, worse still, permitting the court to liquidate itwould cost both sides dearly in taxes and prestige. It was in terrible condition, Joline explained as she showed me through their home. What the hell could he do with oil! We see a bunch of javelinas too, and a bobcat as big as a mountain lion. [6] His children would elect a Board of Trustees, who would make decisions with him at the helm. The sale of the iconic Waggoner Ranch, while marking the end of one era, creates for a new owner the opportunity to begin another. The Big Pasture, however, remained available for grazing and hunting. No one, it seems, wants to witness the breakup of a mythic Texas ranchexcept the Waggoner heirs. Cowboys worry that the feud will destroy the ranch. Why do they fight on? He usually dresses in jeans, a polo shirt, and cowboy boots; in the three times I was with him, he never wore a hat or tried to act like a cowboy. Members of American Quarter Horse Association, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, National Beef Council, Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, and the Texas Land and Mineral Owners Association. The squabbling that has ensnared the ranch for almost a century began on Christmas Day of. The Waggoner is one of the 20 largest cattle ranches in the U.S. and is known worldwide for its quarter horses. Hawley has a cell phone handy, and the ranch radio under the dash crackles with voices from isolated posts miles away. They almost killed him with kindness, literally. To sum up the great legacy of the Waggoner Horse Program, it has produced three AQHA Hall of Fame Members (one Waggoner heir and two Waggoner horses): E. Paul Waggoner, Poco Bueno and Poco Lena; it is the number one All-Time Leading Breeder of NCHA Hall of Fame Members, Poco Lena, Poco Mona, Poco Stampede and Snipper W; it is the number three All-Time Breeder of AQHA Champions; and it is the Breeder of All-Time Leading Sires, Poco Pine, Poco Tivio, Poco Dell and Poco Bob. The W.T. I worked for six months with various people in the oil and the ranching divisions, he told me. | Joe Roberson, who was the estates auditor for many years, describes him this way: Big belt buckle, expensive boots, a bottle of whiskey. E. Paul had a good eye for horseshe bought Poco Bueno, the great cutting horse sireand loved to be seen as the ultimate cattle baron, but a retired Waggoner Ranch foreman named G. L. Proctor told me, He wasnt much of a rider. In 1877, Burk Burnett (6666 Ranch), Col. C.C. One closet was filled with fur coats, another with 350 pairs of shoes, and yet a third with the latest gowns from Paris and New Yorkand she was said never to wear one more than once. G. Our cattle herd consists of approximately 10,000 mother cows comprised of 60 percent Hereford and 40 percent Angus/Hereford and Brangus/Hereford cross. Northwest Texas was open range in the 1850s, when Dan Waggoner and his fifteen-year-old black slave trailed 242 Longhorn cattle and 6 horses to Wise County. At the time of acquisition, the ranch comprised 520,527 acres (210,650ha), or 800sqmi (2,100km2) but additional acreage was included in the sale making the total closer to 535,000 acres (217,000ha). My dockets not that crowded, he said. This was probably a bluff. Quietly and efficiently, Moore began to purge anyone friendly to the Wharton half of the trust: Jim Hughes, who most people had believed would succeed Biggs as trustee; Joe Roberson, the auditor who was being groomed as comptroller; Bill McBroom, the head of the oil division; and Ross Malone, the game warden. The ranch has perfected water right permits to pump approximately 3,893 acre feet of water annually, which is used to irrigate farmland and water the grounds around major headquarter improvements. Waggoners have a series of brands that go on each foal, the history of which goes back to the days of W. T. Waggoner. Today, the ranch boasts 7 stallions and over 90 broodmares containing bloodlines of Poco Bueno, High Brow Cat, Peppy San Badger, Top Sail Cody, Smart Chic Olena, and Wimpys Little Step. We opened it up. Today the home is bright and welcoming. As the frontier pushed westward, he expanded his herd and bought more land, in Clay and Wichita counties. He ended up using it for cattle dip, and the well became Electras city dump., Near the entrance to Zacaweista, once the home of the first Electra, we stop at the grave of Poco Bueno. After Guy died, E. Paul and Buster faced the issue of what would become of his shares in the Waggoner estate. This rare phenomenon. [9] In 1902, W.T. Today, Waggoner descendants still reside at the ranch in two main compounds: Albert B. Wharton, III lives at the Zacaweista (Indian term for good grass) Headquarters and Helen Biggs Willingham and her husband Gene live at the Santa Rosa Headquarters. But by the 1920s, with the advent of the automobile, W.T.s attitude about oil had changed. I remember my mother taking me to Fort Worth to talk to her attorney. Ahead was a legal battle over whether Buster had the right to dispose of property that Electra, his mother, had left in trust to him and his bloodline. Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival Is More Than an Event. At that time, Gene wanted to sell leases to hunters and Bucky didnt. As land was cleared for settlement, he gradually moved west and by the late 1870s settled along Beaver Creek near Electra Texas. They gathered information on the value of individual pastures, with the help of foreman Jimmy Lee Smith. ACRES By the turn of the century, settlers were overrunning Indian reservations, and the open range was all but gone. reclaimed all land and assets in 1923 and placed them in a so-called Massachusetts trust, a draconian arrangement in which he, as the trustee, controlled everything, including one of the biggest shallow oil fields in the world. Some people think that the last chance for a settlement died with Electra II. So it was the King Ranch whose legend was set down for posterity by the distinguished Texas author Tom Lea, while the Waggoners escapades were left to be recorded by the English author John Bainbridgea few passages in his 1960 book called The Super-Americans, about the excesses of Texass oil millionaires. They still talk here of Paul Whitley, an unmarried cowboy who in 1950 rode his horse to Cedar Top, the most remote camp on the ranch, and lived alone in a primitive cabin until his final illness, in 2002. Waggoner's death, his three children, Guy Waggoner, E. Paul Waggoner and Electra Waggoner each inherited a section of the ranch, although there was still a Board of Trustees. Its pastures and wheat fields, cattle and horses, mansions. After a hard rain, this endless maze of graded red clay becomes a network of quagmires. Perhaps they are afraid of ghosts. He went on and on about how heartbroken he was and how much he missed them, but he didnt write them. I just knew that life there was a lot different from life in Albuquerque. In 1963, when Bucky was fifteen, Buster Wharton died, leaving a will that gave his share of the Waggoner estate to his widow and his shotguns to Bucky. 510,527.00 She was a genteel and educated woman, polished at Miss Wrights finishing school at Bryn Mawr, a person who hated the details of ranching but respected and loved the tradition. When Judge Tom Neely, who is in charge of the current lawsuit to break up the ranch, was a young attorney in a previous round of Waggoner lawsuits during the sixties, he and other lawyers found some of E. Pauls letters to Helen. LOCATION Brooks, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kleberg, Nueces, and Willacy counties. With the trust on the verge of expiring, Bucky and Electra II agreed to extend it until March 31, 2003. and 283. Now 56, Bucky is one of the protagonists in the battle over the future of the ranch. divided the ranch that he and his dad had founded into four large tracts. The cowboys of the Waggoner Ranch are living legends, men who embody the attributes of the lean and dusty riders who braved the wild a century ago to make room for a herd. Yet the Waggoner Ranch has outlasted its South Texas rival in one respect: It is still under the direct control of its founding family. Additionally, all livestock (cattle and horses), an extremely substantial inventory of rolling stock, farm equipment, pickups, trucks, etc., and considerable other personal property are included in this offering. He owns a bank, an oil company, and a cattle company, but he is happiest when he is working outdoors or having dinner with his family. Gene has told people that the ranch would sell in no time, the whole 520,000 acres. But even as board members, they were powerless to exercise any authority over the ranch, except to elect future trustees. PRIMARY USE cow-calf, feed yard, farming, horses, oil and gas, wild game hunting, birding . And You Thought Feral Hogs Were Bad. The Municipal Airport at Wichita Falls is served by American Eagle, and the runway is 13,100 feet long. $720,000,000 In the meantime, the Waggoners had been buying out small farmers on the Texas side of the river, paying $1 an acre and often less. Cowboying isnt a profession, its a life, but if the Waggoner Ranch is broken up into pieces, that life will exist no more. Many carry the bloodline of Poco Bueno. The United States Department of Agriculture, as part of a conservation project, had surveyed every foot of ground on the ranch, and Roberson fed this information into a database. Patel Brothers - largest Indian American supermarket chain. Probably the nation's largest single-parcel ranch, the 510,000-acre property is about 175 miles northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and 12 miles south of Vernon, the county seat of. He either didnt care or didnt notice that E. Pauls clanespecially his socialite wife, Helenconsidered Electras line of the family to be tainted and Buster to be an irresponsible spendthrift, and they were plotting for the day when they could force the Whartons out. This is a robust and versatile multi-faceted operation like none other available on the market today. [8] The ranch spanned more than a million acres of land. Inside the Decades-long Effort to Commemorate a Notorious Waco Lynching. The ranch was established in 1849 and spans six Texas counties and almost 800 square miles. After dinner by the creek, Dan suggested that they all ride into Frederick, Oklahoma, personally setting the pace. Electra married A.B. Slaughter (Slaughter Ranches), Jim Loving (JA Ranch) and Dan and W.T. The cowboys sided with Bucky, who felt that hunters left litter, cut fences, and left gates open. These camps range in size from just over 20,000 acres to nearly 40,000 acres each. But the difference is that the cattle barons of the King Ranch led private, almost secretive lives, running their empire themselves and living on the land, while the Waggoners turned their ranch over to professionals, moved away, and pursued flamboyance. In his entire life, he never drew a paycheck from anyone but the Waggoners. Its a perfect October morning, cool and crisp, and the ranch spreads out in every direction, 25 miles north to south, 30 miles east to west. W.T. [9] One of the lakes on the ranch provides water for the City of Wichita Falls. Quanah delivered the land to the Waggoners and other cattle baronsat one time, Waggoner and son leased 650,000 acres for an annual payment of $30,000and the cattle barons made Quanah rich and famous. Each camp manager is responsible for the operation of his specific unit, but all of the managers and cowboys work together during spring branding and shipping. The answer lies in the rich and rowdy heritage of the Waggoner clan. Buckys home sits on one side of the square. Both were famous for breeding, the King Ranch for Santa Gertrudis cattle, the Waggoner Ranch for cutting horses. Or you draw a line and Ill take first pick.. Historically, the Waggoner Ranch has been operated as a cow/calf ranching unit, with stocker cattle used for seasonal grazing on wheat fields. He offered him pennies on the dollar for his fifty percent share., It was a paltry amount, Roberson agreed. The Waggoner Ranch was founded by a man named Dan Waggoner around 1854 when he and his son relocated to a 160-acre farm in Wise County, TX, after the untimely passing of Dan's wife Nancy in 1853. To make the trip, Dan gave Tom $12, a group of drovers, and 50 saddle horses, all of which had sores on their backs from heavy use. [6] However, in 1923, he changed his mind, and set up a Massachusetts trust. This iconic ranch property has been owned and operated by Waggoner heirs for approximately 165 years. Its second only to the King Ranch in size, and second to none in its history of drink, divorce, and dissension. discovered oil while trying to drill for water, Hughes tells me. Add to cart. W T Waggoner Ranch Brand Honoring Waggoner Ranch Family and Owners Framed Print by Richard W Linford. They were super, super people. Nevertheless, Smith resigned in 1997, tired of being caught in the middle of the power struggle. These lakes were built by the Corps of Engineers as a major source of municipal and irrigation use water for Wichita Falls, area towns and nearby farming communities. Meanwhile, the Waggoner family tree was sprouting more branches. Potential buyers include a group of Japanese investors, Ross Perot Jr., Boone Pickens, even the Mormon churchor so go the rumors. In 1869 Dan made seventeen-year-old W.T. Choose from multiple print sizes, border colors, and canvas materials. Several small on-site water wells are also located in this large block of farmland. Then, twelve years ago, the two branches of the Waggoner family that control the W. T. Waggoner estate, which in turn controls the ranch, locked themselves in a lawsuit no one can win. Growing up, the ranch didnt seem like a big deal, Bucky told me. They chose the latter. [8], After the death of Daniel Waggoner in 1902, his son W.T. They seldom speak and hardly ever socialize.