George T. Reynolds and the Long X: A Brazos Clear Fork Ranching Family

Who was George T. Reynolds?

George Thomas Reynolds was a Texas cattleman whose company, working with his brother William David Reynolds, grew from a few hundred head into one of the largest ranching operations in the state. He was born in Alabama in 1844 and died in Fort Worth in 1925, according to the National Cowboy Museum profile.

The documented record on George himself is limited, so this profile also covers the family company and the Clear Fork country where it started. It is marked thin for that reason.

Early life: a pony rider and a cavalryman

The museum says Reynolds rode for the Pony Express at fifteen and joined the Confederate Army's Nineteenth Texas Cavalry at seventeen. He received a medical discharge. In 1865 he drove one of the first herds of cattle to New Mexico.

In 1867 he married Lucinda Bettie Matthews. Her dowry of 200 cows helped the herd grow. He and his brothers formed a partnership and used the Long X brand, then moved to Bent County, Colorado, before returning to Texas because of drought and conflicts with Native tribes.

How did the Long X and Reynolds Cattle Company grow?

The Land Report profile of the Reynolds family says George Thomas and William David Reynolds registered the Long X brand and ran herds across a vast area, from West Texas to Canada. They built their operations on ranches in Haskell, Shackelford and Throckmorton counties.

In 1884 the brothers incorporated at the First National Bank in Albany. In 1895 they acquired 232,000 acres in Jeff Davis County and established the Long X Ranch there. The museum says that by his death George's company, by then the Reynolds Cattle Company, owned more than 460,000 acres.

The Clear Fork country and the families around it

The Reynolds and Matthews families, as described by the Portal to Texas History page on Lambshead Ranch, arrived in East Texas in the 1850s and reached the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in 1866.

That history includes conflict. The museum notes the Reynolds brothers left Colorado partly because of conflicts with Native tribes.

What the record leaves out

Several things are not stated in the pages consulted. They do not give the year the brothers left Bent County, Colorado, and do not describe George's own role in management compared with William's. They also do not explain how the Reynolds Cattle Company name relates to the 1884 incorporation described by the Land Report, though the museum uses that name for the company at the time of his death.

What the sources do establish is the sequence: a first herd driven to New Mexico in 1865, a marriage in 1867, a Colorado attempt that ended in a return to Texas, the Long X brand registered on the Clear Fork, incorporation by 1884, and a large West Texas purchase in 1895. Herds from this operation ran, in the Land Report's words, from West Texas to Canada, which points to long northern drives as part of the business.

Honors and the family today

George Reynolds was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1974. The Land Report's 2015 list gives the Reynolds family holdings as 250,000 acres, with heirs of the two brothers owning ranches in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana and North Dakota.

That is far smaller than the 460,000 acres reported at George's death, which fits the pattern of divided inheritances across several generations.

Learn more about the Reynolds family

The Handbook of Texas and the Land Report are useful next stops. For ranching coverage, see the farm.FM ranching section or read a farm.FM story about the Reynolds family ranches.