Spade Ranch was the name of two separate West Texas ranches under separate ownership, before being combined by Isaac L. Ellwood. Both ranches are known for their use of barbed wire.
The first ranch, in the Texas panhandle, was started by John F. "Spade" Evans on August 25, 1880, after Evans purchased 23 pieces of land in Donley County. [1]
The second ranch, headquartered in Mitchell County, was started as the Renderbrook Ranch by J. Taylor Barr. In 1882, John and Dudley Snyder bought the ranch and by 1887, enlarged the ranch to 300,000 acres. During the January 1886 blizzard, the Snyder brothers sold the land to Isaac L. Ellwood. He combined the first Spade ranch with Renderbrook, and after buying 128,000 more acres from the Snyder brothers, renamed the land to Spade ranch. [2] [3] He had the Spade ranch brand registered in 1889. That same year, J. Frank Norfleet became the first foreman of the ranch. [1]
After Ellwood's death on September 11, 1910, the ranch was inherited by sons William Leonard and Erwin Perry Ellwood. They placed barbed wire across the land, and replaced the cattle with Herefords in 1919, as they are better suited to the dry climate of Texas. In 1924, the northern part of the land put on sale, selling 6,300 cattle that October. 5,200 were later sold, and by 1926, about 80% of the northern part of the land had been sold. [1]
Spade, Texas is named after Spade Ranch. [4]
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is the construction of inexpensive fences, and it is also used as a security measure atop walls surrounding property. As a wire obstacle, it is a major feature of the fortifications in trench warfare.
Sterling County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,372, making it the ninth-least populous county in Texas. Its county seat is Sterling City. The county is named for W. S. Sterling, an early settler in the area. Sterling County was one of 30 prohibition, or entirely dry, counties in the state of Texas, but is now a moist county.
The XIT Ranch was a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle which operated from 1885 to 1912. Comprising over 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of land, it ran for 200 miles (300 km) along the border with New Mexico, varying in width from 20 to 30 miles. The massive ranch stretched through ten counties in Texas and at its peak regularly handled 150,000 head of cattle. The brand "XIT" was chosen for its difficulty to alter thus thwarting rustlers.
King Ranch is the largest ranch in the United States. At some 825,000 acres it is larger than both the land area of Rhode Island and the area of the European country Luxembourg. It is mainly a cattle ranch, but also produced the racehorse Assault, who won the Triple Crown in 1946.
Joseph Farwell Glidden was an American businessman and farmer. He was the inventor of the modern barbed wire. In 1898, he donated land for the Northern Illinois State Normal School in DeKalb, Illinois, which was renamed as Northern Illinois University in 1957.
Isaac Leonard Ellwood was an American rancher, businessman and barbed wire entrepreneur.
The Ellwood House was built as a private home by barbed wire entrepreneur Isaac Ellwood in 1879. It is located on First Street in DeKalb, Illinois, United States, in DeKalb County. The Victorian style home, designed by George O. Garnsey, underwent remodeling in 1898-1899 and 1911. The house was originally part of 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) which included a large stable complex known as "Ellwood Green." Isaac Ellwood lived here until 1910 when he passed the estate to his son, Perry Ellwood.
The George H. Gurler House or simply, the Gurler House, is a home in DeKalb, Illinois. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places to which it was added in 1979. The home was built in 1857 and was occupied by members of George H. Gurler's extended family as early as 1888. Gurler was the co-founder of the Gurler Brothers Creamery. Gurler was also the president of the DeKalb County Farmer's Institute, the predecessor of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The Spade Ranch is a large cattle ranch located in the Sandhills of western Nebraska between the towns of Gordon and Ellsworth. Founded in 1888 by Bartlett Richards, the ranch was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Bartlett Richards was a Cattle Baron and Banker who owned or fenced in vast acreage in Wyoming and Nebraska.
Aztec Land and Cattle Company, Limited ("Aztec") is a land company with a historic presence in Arizona. It was formed in 1884 and incorporated in early 1885 as a cattle ranching operation that purchased 1,000,000 acres in northern Arizona from the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. It then imported approximately 32,000 head of cattle from Texas and commenced ranching operations in Arizona. Because Aztec's brand was the Hashknife, a saddler's knife used on early day ranches, the company was known more famously as The Hashknife Outfit. The company has been in continuous existence since 1884.
Christopher Columbus Slaughter was an American rancher, cattle drover, cattle breeder, banker and philanthropist in the American frontier. After serving in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he came to own 40,000 cattle and over one million acres of ranch land in West Texas. He became the largest taxpayer in Texas, and used his wealth to endow Baptist institutions. He was known as the "Cattle King of Texas".
The Fence Cutting Wars occurred near the end of the 19th century in the American Old West, and were a series of disputes between farmers and cattlemen with larger land holdings. As newcomers came to the American West to farm, established cattlemen began to fence off their larger tracts of land with barbed wire in order to protect them from the farmers' claims. The settlers viewed this as a closing of the open range, and began to cut fences to attempt to reclaim lands in the public domain. The ensuing, widespread series of conflicts was known as the Fence Cutting Wars.
The Four Sixes Ranch, stylized as 6666 Ranch, is a ranch in King County, Texas as well as Carson County and Hutchinson County.
Henry B. Sanborn was an American businessman, rancher, hotelier, horse breeder and philanthropist. He was known as the "Father of Amarillo, Texas."
Colonel James Boyd Hawkins was an American planter and rancher. He moved from North Carolina to Texas in the 1840s, and he established the Hawkins Ranch, a working sugarcane plantation, operated by 101 enslaved African Americans by 1860. After the American Civil War, he replaced the slaves with paid laborers and convicts, and gradually turned his landholdings into a cattle ranch.
The Big Die-Up refers to the death of hundreds of thousands of cattle on the Great Plains of the United States during the unusually cold and snowy winters of 1885-86 and 1886-87. Many ranchers were bankrupted as a result and the era of the open range in which cattle roamed unfenced on the plains began its decline.
Thomas O'Connor was an Irish rancher and landowner from County Wexford, Ireland whose estate was reportedly the largest individual land and cattle holding in Texas at the time of his death.
James Franklin Norfleet was an American rancher who was responsible for the capture and arrest of over 100 criminals during the early 20th century.
Dudley Hiram Snyder and John Wesley Snyder were American cattle drover and rancher brothers.