How could things have spun so wildly out of control? Beaver Creek feeds Santa Rosa Lake, and the Wichita River feeds Lake Kemp and Lake Diversion. By contrast, Bucky is reserved, private, and serious about his business affairs. But by the 1920s, with the advent of the automobile, W.T.s attitude about oil had changed. 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. 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. When E. Paul drew Zacaweista instead, W.T. In 1879, the Waggoners foiled rustlers by changing their brand from the D-71 to the now-legendary three reverse Ds. But Buckys mother was not about to give up her sons inheritance without a fight. Chip Gaines Bought Larry McMurtrys Historic Texas Bookstore. Numerous large, functional and well designed sets of shipping and working pens are scattered throughout the ranch. Electra married A.B. Both ranches once covered more than a million acres. As land was cleared for settlement, he gradually moved west and by the late 1870s settled along Beaver Creek near Electra Texas. Proctor, whose daddy was a Waggoner cowboy too, went to work for the ranch in 1937, at age thirteen. The many improvements and related assets mentioned above combine to offer the purchaser an extremely attractive depreciation schedule. By 1881, his ranch had reached its modern dimensions: half a million acres sprawling over six counties the largest ranch in Texas under a single fence. Buster Wharton Jr., a polo player, playboy, and famous drunk who died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1963. W. T. Waggoner Ranch is located 13 miles south of Vernon, Texas with office headquarters in Vernon. Our cattle herd consists of approximately 10,000 mother cows comprised of 60 percent Hereford and 40 percent Angus/Hereford and Brangus/Hereford cross. You have no voice here and you never will.. Hostile Comanches and Kiowas, plus a few foolhardy nesters trying to scratch out a living, occupied this endless stretch of grassland. 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. But for how much longer? This rare phenomenon. Waggoner found oil while drilling for water. Several small on-site water wells are also located in this large block of farmland. Vernon Regional Airport has a 5,100 foot long runway. Daniel Vaughn is the countrys first barbecue editor, and he has eaten more barbecue than you have. These camps range in size from just over 20,000 acres to nearly 40,000 acres each. Consequently, climate data can vary over such a large area of the state. This will still be ranchland, for thats all its fit to be, but not ranching on the grand scale that allows men to be cowboys. Its absence symbolizes the fate of the Guy Waggoner clan in the history of the ranch. Much of the ranch is covered with mesquite, cedar, and prickly pear, and when the sun softens late in the evening, the dull green of the vegetation and the deep red of the soil give the ranch the pastel serenity of a Mexican village. A drought in the last part of the nineteenth century made the land where the Waggoner Ranch now sits nearly useless for growing crops. The Running W is the brand for the King Ranch located in south Texas close to Kingsville, Tx. Joe Roberson showed me how to read the books. The dispute seemed to highlight Bucky and Genes contrasting attitudesone loved the land, the other loved the money. Then he left the meeting and thats the last we heard. W T Waggoner Ranch Brand Honoring Waggoner Ranch Family and Owners Framed Print by Richard W Linford. Settling into an apartment attached to Busters former home at Zacaweista, he enrolled at Midwestern State University, in Wichita Falls, and commuted between ranch and campus, pursing a degree in business administration while learning the ins and outs of the estate. Bring on the Shiplap. In a deposition filed with the court in 2001, Bucky acknowledged: We do not meet face to face, just he and I. 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. 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. This huge block of farmland is crossfenced into large manageable fields which are suitable for grazing thousands of head of wheat pasture cattle. (Tom) Waggoner was heard to say, There I was with more t, han 5,000 big, wild steers, 50 sore-backed horses, $12 and 16 years of my life.. Seymour, the county seat of Baylor County, is several miles south of the ranch, and has a runway that is 4,300 feet long. [6], The ranch was originally established in 1852 near Vernon, Texas, by Daniel Waggoner under the name of Dan Waggoner & Son; his son being William Thomas Waggoner, who was an infant at the time. ACRES . Stretching across six North Texas counties, the Waggoner Ranch is considered to be extremely well located. W.T. My dockets not that crowded, he said. Fire Ants Have Unleashed Chaos in Texas for Decades. The answer lies in the rich and rowdy heritage of the Waggoner clan. As the large ranches of Texas, such as the Waggoner, 6666, JA, Slaughter, King Ranch and others, were established, fenced and began to operate, these legendary holdings were, at times, confronted with the problems of Indian raids and cattle rustlers. Oil was a nuisance, and any good cattleman knew the value of water. . Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival Is More Than an Event. This is a diverse operation consisting of cattle, horses, farming, oil, recreational lakes and wildlife. [4] It was acquired by Stan Kroenke, who is married to Ann Walton (niece of Sam Walton), in February 2016. This was probably a bluff. The Waggoner Ranchis a historic north Texasranch located 13 miles south of Vernon, Texas. | One of the striking sights as you leave the ranch is the sudden appearance of enormous green fields of cotton, wheat, and alfalfa. They almost killed him with kindness, literally. Two of the camp divisions, the Zacaweista and the Santa Rosa, are very highly improved. Jim Jennings, in a 2005 article in The Quarter Horse Journal, states, By 1868, the Waggoner outfit had grown considerably, but help was still short. They married in 1969. The W. T. Waggoner Ranch is five-time winner of the Texas Ranch Roundup and a recipient of the American Quarter Horse Association's "Best of the Remuda Award". Besides receiving revenue from these house lot leases, the ranch charges a daily use fee for boating and fishing on these lakes and also controls concession rights. I saw them together at a backyard wedding two years ago, but they stayed on opposite sides of the yard, Jim Hughes told me. $720,000,000 All together, as one may imagine, with this many contiguous acres, there is an immense variety of land types on the Waggoner. The sale of the iconic Waggoner Ranch, while marking the end of one era, creates for a new owner the opportunity to begin another. W.T. This iconic ranch property has been owned and operated by Waggoner heirs for approximately 165 years. He offered to pay Buckys attorney fees and pitch in an extra one million. They chose the latter. The main headquarters at the Waggoner Ranch has municipal-quality water from Vernon. As a consequence, the King Ranch scions moved comfortably in elite Texas social, political, and business circles, while the Waggoners never achieved the same degree of prominence. The W.T. When they supplied them, he fumed. Instead of six bedrooms, it now has four. Waggoner Ranch cattle have been 60 percent Hereford and 40 percent Angus/Hereford and Brangus/Hereford. Today the ranch consists of approximately 535,000 acres, and is recognized as the largest ranch in Texas under one fence. Buster never liked cows; the only thing about the ranch he cared about was horses, especially his polo ponies. Its now the residence of Gene and Helen Willingham. We always meet with our employees present, and nothing is really handled. They have quarreled over which wells to cap or abandon, over control of the corporate airplane, over the purchase of bulls and the size of cow herds. The ranch originally operated under the name of Dan Waggoner & Son. We see a bunch of javelinas too, and a bobcat as big as a mountain lion. Thistle Hill, as Electras mansion was called, stands to this day on the crest of Summit Avenue, near downtown. He was teaching at Will Rogers Elementary School, in Houston, where Helen Biggs was also a teacher. 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. 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. The Waggoner Ranch has been very well managed over time, and considering the recent four-year drought, the worst in recorded history, the ranch supports an overall good turf of native grasses. Bickering and backstabbing have been a way of life in the family. 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. Its now the home of Electras grandson, Bucky Wharton, his wife, Joline, and their two children. One morning she packed, jumped in her car, and headed for town, not bothering to stop and open any of the ten gates on the way. It doesnt seem real to even think about it, he says. Biggs second in command was comptroller Killen Moore, a onetime Internal Revenue Service agent. Currently, Waggoner Ranch offspring are excelling in multiple competitive associations, including AQHA, Stock Horse of Texas, NRHA, NRCHA and NCHA. Currently, the ranch has a water well lease on a nearby offsite well, which furnishes livestock water through an extensive waterline network to the large block of farmland located on the northwest side of the ranch, and also to the main ranch headquarters. On each of those transactions, Kroenke had relied on Leadbetter's counsel and the insights of Sam Connolly, general manager of Kroenke Ranches. The W.T. Horses have always been big business at the Waggoner Ranch. $ 58.00. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. declared a misdeal and had them draw again. After her husband died, Electra II did not keep up the pressure on Bucky, as John Biggs and Killen Moore had done. Its been vacant ever since. L. Proctor was foreman when I got here, and I made him my model., The ranch has about thirty cowboys, many of them second- and third-generation Waggoner employees. It is the nations biggest ranch within the confines of a single fence, a spread so vast that it extends across six counties and covers more than eight hundred square miles. Houses back then were very dark, with low ceilings and small windows. A portion of this acreage is seeded to very productive Coastal Bermuda. The letters were typed by his secretary, Neely told me. Skyfood Supermarket (six locations in New York) - Asian Oriental Supermarket. A complete list of this inventory can be made available. The house eventually fell apart and was torn down. Many carry the bloodline of Poco Bueno. Buster received income from his share of the estate, but he had no role in the ranch management and was happy to leave the ranching to E. Paul. He pointed to an impenetrable thicket of mesquite and told me, Thirty years ago we cleared that pasture, all the way to Beaver Creek. The two sides have never been able to agree on a replacement. I think there were twenty-five or twenty-seven attorneys involved, he recalled. When they presented the map to Gene, they say, he asked for more details. As the sun begins to crawl over the horizon, Hawley marvels at the endless prairie.