Busters card room, on the second floor, which was once walled in leather, now has the original wood exposed. Choose from multiple print sizes, border colors, and canvas materials. We met in the boardroom at the Waggoner building, Roberson told me. His daddy worked this ranch for fifteen years, and Shane grew up on Cowboy Row. 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. They were super, super people. Nevertheless, Smith resigned in 1997, tired of being caught in the middle of the power struggle. In one, he wished Electra happy birthday and said, I bought you a $2,500 bond.. Nearby Vernon, which serves as the famed headquarters for the ranch operations office complex, receives an average of 28 inches per year. This is what shes good at, raising cattle. Hawley is 52 and has been at the ranch since 1972, working his way up from cowpuncher to straw boss to headquarters boss and finally to ranch manager. Originally, the trust was supposed to expire after twenty years, in 1943, but the terms of the trust allowed it to be routinely extended in twenty-year increments until 1983. Neither the Willinghams nor the Whartons have the funds to buy the other out. Sold! Texas's legendary Waggoner ranch bought by Arsenal owner Stan Guy, who eventually settled on another ranch the family owned in New Mexico, married eight times. He secretly wanted his favorite, Electra, to draw Zacaweista, because it was nearest to his homestead. 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. The party bagged seventeen wolves (some of which were really coyotes), and the president beat a five-foot rattlesnake to death with his quirt. When they supplied them, he fumed. In addition to land and cattle, the family owned five banks, three cottonseed mills, and a coal company. A drought in the last part of the nineteenth century made the land where the Waggoner Ranch now sits nearly useless for growing crops. 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. ACRES Several small on-site water wells are also located in this large block of farmland. Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival Is More Than an Event. They were mailed while she was socializing in New York with her daughter, named after E. Pauls sister, Electra, and known as Electra II. But Gene and Helen seem determined to do just that. 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. He went on and on about how heartbroken he was and how much he missed them, but he didnt write them. Or you draw a line and Ill take first pick.. SOLD. Traveling to the Four Corners line camp, where Guy Waggoners great home once stood, I tried to imagine that day in the twenties when Anne Burnett Waggoner, the fifth of Guys eight wives, decided shed had enough. Shareholders of the ranch reside at these two divisions. Waggoner Estate Ranch and related assets are now, for the first time ever, being offered for sale at a guideline listed price of. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. 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. He first settled on Catlett Creek near the site of present Decatur. Perhaps they are afraid of ghosts. I tried college in Vernon for a little while, but it wasnt for me. While the last of the calves are being loaded onto the trucks, I talk to a 22-year-old cowboy named Shane Bone, a handsome young man in dusty brown chaps and a well-used cowboy hat. You get in here far enough, it just swallows you up, Hughes tells me. Sign up to hear from us about specials, sales, and events. Waggoner Estate operating approximately 150 of these wells and 40 independent operators operating the balance. In his entire life, he never drew a paycheck from anyone but the Waggoners. Many carry the bloodline of Poco Bueno. "W. T. Waggoner Estate: Venerable, $725 million ranch about to be sold", American Quarter Horse Association: Waggoner Ranch, "You Can Now Buy a Texas Ranch That's the Size of a Small Nation, For $725 Million", "Waggoner Ranch: 1994 Best Remuda Winner", "NFL Owner Stan Kroenke Buys Texas Mega-Ranch Listed for $725 Million", "Legendary Waggoner Ranch Historical Combination of Then and Now", "Massive Waggoner Ranch, "last of the True West," is up for grabs", "Mammoth estate to be split up, auctioned", "Waggoner Ranch, among US' largest, listed for sale", "Ranch Dressing: Brokers Prep Giant Waggoner Farm for Sale", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Waggoner_Ranch&oldid=1097984814, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 July 2022, at 17:07. asked his children to draw cards for the three parcels. No Waggoner is buried on the ranch, only this one cowboy and a few early settlers in unmarked graves. John and Electra had two daughtersa third Electra and Helen. She was strikingly pretty, with a long, sensitive face and dark, sparkling eyes. But Buckys mother was not about to give up her sons inheritance without a fight. . The Waggoner Ranch was established in 1849 by Dan Waggoner. In early 1963 Buster filed a lawsuit, seeking a dispensation to sell shares, but he died before the matter was litigated. Why do they fight on? 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. Moore resigned as trustee in the early eighties, at a critical moment for the estate. 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. $725 million Waggoner Ranch in Texas finds lender for - Chron He knows the ranch, its cast of characters, and its skeletons and stories as well as any outsider. When I asked Joline if they had found any memorabilia from Electras time, she laughed. Horses like Waggoners Rainy Day, Midnight, One Eyed Waggoner, Yellow Wolf, Yellow Jacket, Pretty Boy, Pretty Buck, Snipper W, Pep Up, Jesse James and of course Poco Bueno still appear in the pedigrees of many great horses today. Some say these deer may have never heard a rifle shot. [6] It has about 14,000 cows and bulls as well as 500 horses. Electra II married twice, the second time for keeps to John Biggs, a Texan who worked for International Paper Company, in New York, in 1943. The family made their main homes in the city and returned to the ranch for weekend getaways and holidays. Her best-known work is the statue of Will Rogers on horseback at the entrance to the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, in Fort Worth. Thats where Electra Waggoner Biggs lived and where she kept her studio, Hughes tells me. Recently, new ownership has brought substantial investment in both equipment and design. I cant sit down, never could, he tells me. Its been vacant ever since. 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. Nobodys sure. Biggss brother-in-law was the president of General Motors, and he later named a Buick model for Electra. Gene has told people that the ranch would sell in no time, the whole 520,000 acres. Mammoth estate to be split up, auctioned - Chron [6][11] E. Paul Waggoner raised Quarter Horses on the ranch. Behind his back, other employees referred to Moore as Rasputin. Waggoner first settled his wife and son, William Thomas (Tom) Waggoner,qv in a home on Catlett Creek near the site of present Decatur. Many thousands of additional acres of native pasture are suitable for cultivation, if desired. What must be going through his mind? But the Willinghams arent talkingabout the lawsuit or anything else. [9] In 1902, W.T. A granite tombstone, set in the center of a small, neatly trimmed pasture, marks the grave of the greatest cutting horse of all time. LOCATION Brooks, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kleberg, Nueces, and Willacy counties. Texas became the 28th state on December 29, 1845, so the Waggoner Ranch is nearly as old as Texas itself. On the other three sides are a number of buildings constructed of identical reddish-brown stone, quarried on the eastern part of the ranch. Moreover, a sale would be taxed and so would the distribution of the money. Bucky wanted to make it clear that he believed the situation was untenable. 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. Cowboys of the Waggoner Ranch - Photography Book by Jeremy Enlow An additional 320 acres were then purchased in 1856 near the small town of Decatur, marking the first major expansion of Waggoner's estate. The cattle will be sold, along with the trucks that haul them, and the vast pastures will be chopped up, and who knows what will replace them. FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) One of the largest ranches in the U.S. and an icon for Texas horse and cattlemen has been listed for $725 million, marking the end of a decades-long courtroom battle among. Dan sent Tom (his son), who was only 16 years old at the time, to Kansas City with a herd of 5,000 steers. Some of the larger main shipping pens are equipped with hydraulic chutes and scales. The land was used primarily to raise crops, beef cattle and horses as well as for oil production. For several years there were no further attempts to settle. But by the 1920s, with the advent of the automobile, W.T.s attitude about oil had changed. The majority of the ranch is in native pasture, supporting a mixed variety of palatable native grasses. Quality horses are always the pride of a true rancher, and this original set of broodmares became a huge influence in the development of the Quarter Horse breed. 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. All-night parties that started at Shadowlawn sometimes ended up on the ranch, after a trip by private railroad car, so that Eastern dandies could be treated to the sights of cowboys branding and castrating calves. Though their homesteads are only a few miles apart, the families of Bucky Wharton, the original Electras grandson, and Gene Willingham, Electra IIs son-in-law, might as well live on separate continents. Slaughter (Slaughter Ranches), Jim Loving (JA Ranch) and Dan and W.T. The major block of this farmland, which is located on the northwest side of the ranch, contains approximately 14,000 acres. As it turned out, he didnt. The horses are bred for working ranch purposes,and many still carry the bloodline of the famous quarter horse, Poco Bueno; Decendants of the Waggoner family sold the ranch to Kroenke-Ranches of Bozeman, MT in 2016. Can College Sports Get More Absurd Than SMU Joining the Pac-12? 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.
