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Cattle Drive Heroes and Trail Bosses

Charles Goodnight: The Trail Driver Who Built the JA Ranch in the Texas Panhandle

Cowman, trail blazer and early bison conservationist, Goodnight turned the Texas Panhandle into cattle country.

Who was Charles Goodnight?

Charles Goodnight was the cowman most responsible for opening the Texas Panhandle to large-scale ranching. In a long career he scouted for the Texas Rangers, laid out one of the Southwest's busiest cattle trails, assembled the first chuckwagon, founded the JA Ranch and kept a buffalo herd alive when the species was close to gone. The Handbook of Texas entry calls him a rancher and is the main source for the dates here.

He was born on March 5, 1836, on a farm in Macoupin County, Illinois. His father died when he was five, and he had only six months of formal schooling. In late 1845 the family moved to Milam County, Texas, where he learned to hunt and track and began hiring out to neighbors at eleven.

Early life and the first herds

In 1856 Goodnight and his stepbrother John Wesley Sheek began running about 400 head of cattle on shares in the Brazos valley, and in 1857 they moved the herd to Palo Pinto County. Goodnight did most of the work of looking after the scrawny, wild Texas cattle, and in this period he met Oliver Loving, who ran cattle in the same Western Cross Timbers.

During the Civil War he served with ranger companies that patrolled the frontier. The Handbook says he guided rangers to a Comanche camp on the Pease River in December 1860, where Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured. The same years gave him a detailed knowledge of the Llano Estacado that he used later.

The Goodnight-Loving Trail and the first chuckwagon

Cattle prices in postwar Texas were poor, so in the spring of 1866 Goodnight and Oliver Loving drove a herd southwest from Fort Belknap to the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing, then north to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where they sold steers to feed Indians held on the reservation at eight cents a pound. Eighteen cowhands went along, among them Bose Ikard, and Goodnight assembled the first chuckwagon for the trip.

The route became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Loving died of wounds from a fight with Indians after the third trip in 1867, and Goodnight kept dividing the trail earnings with the family and had Loving's body taken home to Weatherford for burial. See the ranching section of farm.FM for more on the trail era.

Colorado, panic and the move to Palo Duro

By 1869 Goodnight had set up the Rock Canon Ranch near Pueblo, Colorado. He married Molly Dyer in 1870, farmed with irrigation, helped found a bank and invested in Pueblo property. Overstocked ranges and the panic of 1873 wiped out his holdings, so in the fall of 1875 he gathered about 1,600 longhorns and went looking for fresh grass.

He chose Palo Duro Canyon. On October 23, 1876, his outfit reached the canyon rim in Randall County, and the cowboys spent two days getting supplies and cattle down a steep trail. Before moving in, he made an agreement with New Mexican sheepherders that they would stay on the Canadian River while he used the Red River headwaters.

Building the JA Ranch

Goodnight needed capital. John G. Adair, a Denver financier who had lent him $30,000 in 1876, agreed to back a large operation, and on June 18, 1877, they signed a five-year contract creating the JA Ranch. Goodnight held a one-third interest and drew $2,500 a year as resident manager. In 1878 he took the first JA trail herd, led by a steer named Old Blue, to Dodge City, Kansas, over a route he blazed.

By Adair's death in 1885 the JA had reached 1,325,000 acres and more than 100,000 head. Goodnight introduced Hereford bulls, bought and sold cattle at the Kansas City stockyards to upgrade the herd, used artificial watering facilities and owned his range outright instead of relying on open grass. He also made a treaty with Quanah Parker, promising two beeves every other day to Parker's followers if they left the herd alone.

The Key to Goodnight's Success

Goodnight's record shows a man who pursued the next market and the next range, and who paired frontier skill with a financier's backing. He was also a breeder who thought in generations of cattle rather than seasons.

The costs are in the record too. He lost his Colorado holdings in the 1870s, his Chihuahua mining venture failed, and the courts invalidated the Beales-Royuela land grant behind his Inter-State Land Company investments.

  • He went where beef was in demand: army posts, Indian agencies, mining camps and Kansas railheads.
  • He took on a well-funded partner, Adair, instead of trying to build the Panhandle ranch on borrowed money alone.
  • He upgraded Longhorns with Hereford bulls and bought and sold at Kansas City to keep improving the herd.
  • He secured water and land: artificial watering, deeded range and, by report, early barbed wire at the Quitaque Ranch.
  • He made agreements with neighbors, including sheepherders and Quanah Parker, to reduce conflict on the range.
  • He enforced rules against gambling, drinking and fighting, and still found the cowboys he needed.

Controversy, setbacks and a smaller ranch

In 1880 he helped organize the Panhandle Stock Association in Mobeetie and served as its first president. In the Grass Lease Fight of the mid-1880s he became a leader for big cattlemen's interests and was censured in the press, accused of robbing Texas schoolchildren of lease income. Drought, falling beef prices, railroads and incoming farmers added pressure.

He sold his JA interest after the second contract ended in 1887 and left as manager in 1888. He then built a two-story ranch house near the town of Goodnight, moved his buffalo there, and in 1898 he and his wife opened Goodnight College. His investments in the Inter-State Land Company and the Mexican gold and silver mine cut deeply into his fortune.

Buffalo, cattalo and the Burbank of the Range

With Molly's encouragement, he began a domestic buffalo herd and crossed bison with polled Angus cattle to produce what he called cattalo. Buffalo from the Goodnight herd went to zoos in New York and other eastern cities, to Yellowstone and to Europe, and naturalists such as William T. Hornaday and Ernest Thompson Seton took notice. He grew Armstrong County's first wheat crop and exchanged ideas with Luther Burbank, earning the nickname the Burbank of the Range.

He invented a practical sidesaddle for his wife with an extra horn for the left knee.

Death, honors and where to see his Texas

Molly died in 1926. In 1927, on his ninety-first birthday, Goodnight married twenty-six-year-old Corinne Goodnight. He died at his winter home in Phoenix on December 12, 1929, at ninety-three, and was buried beside his first wife in the Goodnight cemetery.

J. Evetts Haley's 1936 biography remains the standard work, and Goodnight's papers are at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon. In 1958 he was one of the original five voted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Palo Duro Canyon State Park includes a restored dugout thought to be his first 1876 quarters. For more on his world, try a farm.FM story about Goodnight and the JA.

Timeline

  1. 1836Born in Macoupin County, Illinois
  2. 1845Family moves to Milam County, Texas
  3. 1857Trails a herd to Palo Pinto County with John Wesley Sheek
  4. 1866Drives to Fort Sumner with Loving; builds the first chuckwagon
  5. 1870Marries Molly Dyer; Rock Canon Ranch near Pueblo
  6. 1876Reaches Palo Duro Canyon, October 23
  7. 1877Signs the JA Ranch contract with John Adair, June 18
  8. 1887Sells JA interest; moves to Goodnight ranch house
  9. 1929Dies in Phoenix, December 12

Frequently asked questions

Who was Charles Goodnight?

Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) was a Texas cattleman who co-blazed the Goodnight-Loving Trail, built the first chuckwagon, founded the JA Ranch in Palo Duro Canyon and kept a notable bison herd.

What is the Goodnight-Loving Trail?

It ran from Fort Belknap, Texas, southwest to the Pecos River and north to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and on toward Colorado. Goodnight and Oliver Loving first drove it in 1866.

How big was the JA Ranch?

By 1885, the year John Adair died, the JA Ranch reached its maximum of 1,325,000 acres, with more than 100,000 head of cattle, according to the Handbook of Texas.

What is the cattalo?

Cattalo was Goodnight's name for a cross of bison with polled Angus cattle. He began the experiment after starting a domestic buffalo herd with his wife's encouragement.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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