Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-02
TEXAS RANCHES
BEING DIVIDED
NO LONGER HELD INTACT, AS
WAS THE RULE
Cereal Man Purchases Land 100 Miles
from the Railroad for Big City.
King Ranch Is Kept
Intact

requires no StretCn OF Ine iiiie -.
TO picture the passing of the big rancnes
i'm Texas for there is too much indis-
putable evidence to bear daily OF tnel. t
going. There is hardly week tnat
Dasses without witnessing the dismem-
berment of some of these great ianueu
principalties, and the cowinah WHO mas
felt himself growing poorer year ny
year through the constant uepreclt.i r.ti, ,n
in live stock values has awakened 10
find himself rich through the steady
cIin,bing of value in the land he has
heretofore devoted to grazing of cattle.
millions of acres that have heretofore
been devoted to the production OF cattle
arc RAPIDLY coming under the dominion
of the plow, and big syndicates are be-
ing formed in all the principal cities of
the east for the purpose of buying these
big Texas ranches and cutting them up
into farms to be sold to actual settlers
and a big profit made over the original
investment But these syndicates are
not the only ones who are making
money out of the evolution of Texas.
The man who owns the land is stacking
up bank account that he never
dreamed possible at the time he ac-
quired the land.
The famous x 1 T, or capital syndl-
cate ranch, located in the Panhandle,
is almost q memory. This land, en-
bracing 100000 acres, was originally
valued at s. per acre and given in ex-
change for the magnificent new state
capitol building. 1t was owned by Chi
cago people and used for ranching pur-
poses until the settlement of the coun-
try created such a demand for the land
that il has had to be turned loose. The
process of dismemberment has been
going on for several years, but this
winter all the lands will be put on the
market and sold to the people who
have been clamoring to buy. The x / T
ranch will pass into history after this
year. The almost equally famous l. x
ranch has already been wiped out Of
existence.
Cereal Man Buys Land
c. w. Post, the well known cereal
man of Battle Creek, Mich, few
months ago bought several hundred,
thousand acres of rich Land out in the
heart of the west Texas ranch country,
and he is now out in that section nurs-
ing a dream that may seem utopian.
Post is a man of original ideas, and
he has suddenly formed an idea that he
must build an ideal or modern western
city. He has chosen as the site of this
model the center Of the magnificent
cattle range he has acquired, and
is now surveying for it's location. 1t
makes no difference to Mr.. Post that
the site of his model city is 100 miles
from any railway. He says his city
shall have railway facilities if he has
to build a little matter of 100 miles
himself. And all the land in the vicin-
ity of the Post purchase is getting
ready to turn it's mellow side up to the
sky The cattle that are now peaceful
" grazing upon it's succulent grasses
must be hurried off to market to make
room for that civilization which is said
to begin and end with the plow.
Down in south and southwest Texas,
where big ranches have been in vogue
as far back as the Texas mind runneth,
and where 1t was thought they were
firmly and irrevocably established, the
benign influence Of the almighty dollar
is making itself felt in such an appre-
ciable manner that every cattle king
is trembling On his throne. The dis
covery of artesian water and the possi-
bilities of irrigation from flowing wells
have already worked mighty trans
formation in that section. Big ranch
after big ranch has gone down before
the steady advent of the truck farmer,
and one of the greatest developments
of that nature was the fate of the big
Simmons ranch, located in Live Oak
county. DR.. C. F. Simmons, promi-
nent proprietary medicine man of st.
Louis, came down into Texas a few
years ago and bought hundreds of thou
sands of acres of wild Texas range land
almost for song. He also purchased
some cattle and started to ranching
in the good old way incident to that
portion of Texas. But the eye of the
man with the hoe was upon him, and
his worldly possessions were so coveted
that there was no peace until the big
Simmons ranch was carved up into
1000 farms and placed upon the market.
The last of these 1000 farms has just
been sold, and an army of restless and
energetic men are busily at work pre-
pairing to put the land into cultivation
next season. Houses are being built,
a town laid out and wonderful scene
of activity is witnessed on every side.
And DR.. c. f. Simmons is ahead just
$500,000 of his original investment and
feels that Texas has been wonderfully
good to him.
King Ranch Remains
But with all the rapid development in
this direction and passing of the big
ranches from the face of the earth,
there is yet one mighty ranch down in
the Corpus Christi country that has
successfully resisted the onslaught of
the speculator and the land seeker.
The great King ranch, best known by
its familiar appellation of Santa Ger
trudes, stands an unyielding obstacle
to those who would convert its vast
grazing preserves into fertile fields of
agricultural products. This ranch is
owned by Mrs. Harriet M. King and
managed by her son-in-law, Robert ].
Kleburg, former president of the great
Cattle Raisers' association of Texas.
1t is the largest ranch in the world,
owned by woman, and embraces
100000 acres, and the land is as fine
and desirable as can be found in all
the great state of Texas. But the syn
dicates are looking upon 1t with covet-
Gus eyes. Manager Kleburg has Just
turned down an offer of $4,000, 900 spot
cash for this great ranch with as much
nonchalance as II such deals were an
every day proposition He Is making
a world OF agricultural wealth on its