Texas Cowboy Reunion Oldtimers' Association TX5256

Founded 1930, jointly with Texas Cowboy Reunion - to "hand down to posterity, customs and traditions" of early cattle people who lived in dugouts and fought droughts, die-outs, heat and freeze-ups, raising the longhorns that finally brought settlement to the southwest. Here (1930) were 335 men who had been cowboys prior to 1895. Besides regular cowmen, early members included musician Paul Whiteman, editor Amon Carter, Ranger Captain Tom Hickman and Will Rogers, ex-cowhand, internationally famous entertainer and columnist. Colonel R.L. Penick was first president. In 1932, donation of a bull started building fund for bunkhouse and roundup hall standing nearby. Ranch donated site. The interior and exterior of the bunkhouse feature ranch brands of many members. Oldtimers' Reunion and Rodeo held 3 days annually (including July 4th) features chuckwagon meals, square dancing, and oldtimers' memories and songs. Town celebrates with cowboy parade and thousands come to see what is called "world's largest amateur cowboy show," with actual cowhands performing. These oldtimers represent the end of the open range and beginning of the era of barbed wire. They opened Texas' last frontier.

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The Spade Ranch TX5430

Founded by Isaac L. Ellwood (1833-1910), inventor who made a fortune in barbed wire, and bought (1889) from veteran cattlemen D.H. and J.W. Snyder an 8 x 25-mile range (128,000 acres) in Hale, Hockley, Lamb and Lubbock counties. This range was used for Spade-branded calves from Renderbrook Spring, his southmost ranch, in Mitchell County. He continued buying South Plains land until Spade Range was 54 miles long. Headquarters (originally in Lamb County) was moved to South Camp (3/10 mi.N of here) after farm-land sales in 1920s. Ellwood's descendants still own and operate the Spade.

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The Texas Rangers and the Fence Cutters TX5436

Before 1875 in Texas, cattle roamed over thousands of acres of public land, and free grazing became a tradition. After 1875, however, an increasing farm populace tended to protect crops and other property with barbed wire fences which were resented by stockraisers. Cattle losses in drouths of the 1880s provoked such widespread cutting of fences that the Texas government recognized this as a crime and in 1884 enacted laws and measures to curb the practice. Texas Rangers were dispatched by the Governor at the call of County Judges and Sheriffs to apprehend the fence cutters. They operated from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and from the Panhandle to the Pine Woods of East Texas. Disguise and concealment were required, and one of the Rangers who won praise for his work pronounced it the most disagreeable duty in the world. The vigorous effort went on for some years. Finally, however, stockmen who had wanted to restore the open range were won over to fencing their own lands and using windmills to water their cattle herds. The Texas Rangers had in one more instance helped to stabilize life in the West.

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William Henry Bush TX5830

The Frying Pan Ranch was founded in 1881 by Amarillo Pioneer Henry Sanborn and J.F. Glidden, the inventor of barbed wire. The partnership was dissolved in 1894. Glidden sold the ranch to his son-in-law, W.H. Bush, who later endowed the free library and park in his birthplace, Martinsburg, New York. Bush was a patron of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Amarillo Public Library. His gift of land in 1900 established the site of St. Anthony's Hospital. The round up house built in 1926 was a present to his daughter, Emeline, on her sixteenth birthday.

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Aliceville Prisoner of War Camp 1942-1945 AL86
During World War II, the United States Army interned 6,000 German prisoners of war here on a 400 acre site, employing 1,000 American military and civilian personnel. Major Karl H. Shriver commanded Corps of Engineers forces which began construction in August, 1942. Activated Dec. 12, 1942. First prisoners, from Gen. Erwin Rommel's Africa Korps, arrived by Frisco Railroad June 2, 1943. Camp first commanded by Col. F. A. Prince, later by Col. R. S. Grier. 400 frame buildings: barracks, hospital, bakeries, chapels, greenhouse, theaters; water and sewer systems, fire department, amphitheater, sports fields, gardens. Barbed wire compound with guard towers. 2 prisoners killed attempting to escape. Deactivated Sept. 30, 1945.

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The Chisholm Trail KS140
At the close of the Civil War when millions of longhorns were left on the plains of Texas without a market, the Union Pacific was building west across Kansas. Joseph McCoy, an Illinois stockman, believed these cattle could be herded over the prairies for shipment by rail. He built yards at Abilene and sent agents to notify the Texas cattlemen. The trail he suggested ran from the Red river to Abilene but took its name from Jesse Chisholm, Indian trader, whose route lay between the North Canadian river and this vicinity. In 1867 the first drives were made and during the next five years more than a million head moved north past this place. Eventually the railroads and the barbed wire of settlers closed the long trails. But the cowboys of these great drives, living in the saddle for more than a month, swimming flooded rivers, fighting night stampedes, have become the heroes of an American epic.

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