The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1933-09-29

and lodge insignia.
In the Colorado brand book may be found a
skull and crossbones, a rake, shovel, shoe boot
cup, coffee-pot, glasses, flag, keys apple star,
moon ladder, tree, anchor, pitchfork, glove,
muleshoe, rocking chair, Ratchet axe, spear roll
ing pin. gate, spectacles, pipe, fish, gum compass
umbrella, hands and dozens of other queer char
acters for which it is difficult to find an ade-
quately descriptive name. In the Illustrations at
the head of this article is included chart of "A
outof-the- ordinary brands.
So important the branding iron to the
cattle industry that a few years ago the state
whose prosperity was built upon the cattle busi-
ness hit upon the unique idea of branding a
new -million-dollar classroom building at its
state university with the symbols of its greatest
industry. Accordingly Garrison hall at the Uni
versity Of Texas now bears on its walls 80 cat
tie brands which helped make Texas history As
preliminary to this idea, E. W. winkler, uni
versity librarian, examined more than 10000 cat
tie brands which used at one time or an
other in that state and from this number selected
the 80 which were to be engraved on the white
stone walls of the new classroom building as
representative of some step In the progress of
Texas history.
There is good story connected with every
one of them but outstanding among them are:
the Austin Spanish" brand of Stephen F. Aus
tin, "the Father Of Texas; the Four Skies OF
D. b. buIQoII WHICH resulted from MS winning
large ranch in poker game in which he held
-four Of kind; the D brand Of A. H. (Shang-
hai) Pierce, who drove cattle from Matagora
county the gulf and whose steers were known
from the Rio Grande to the Canadian line as
Shanghai Pierce's sea lions: the KIT brand
generally known as Ten in Texas" of the Capt.
toll Land Syndicate whose holdings covered ten
counties and included three million acres given
in payment for the state capitol building at Aus
- Cor
than 1900 cattle year in the trail-driving
period after the Civil war; the IA brand of
Charles Goodnight, owner of the famous Good
night ranch, home of the Goodnight herd of buf-
falo, and experimenter in crossing cattle and
buffalo to produce the "catalo" and last but not
least the NIX brand of s. A. Maverick the cattle
man who paradoxically became famous not be-
cause of brand but because of lack of one and
whose name became a common noun in the Amer
lean language For maverick is a word found
in all dictionaries, defined by the eminent Die
tionaire Webster IAN unbranded animal, esp.
a metherless calf. formerly customarily claimed
by the first one branding it" and 'mavericking'
IS recognized legal term for illegal appropria-
ton of unbranded cattle.
Samuel A Maverick graduate of Yale col
lege in the class Of 1926, was one of the foun-
ders Of Texas independence and a member of
the congress of the Republic of Texas In 1S45
The exact details Of how his name came to be
perpetuated In common Western word are
somewhat disputed. One account states that
neighbor who owed Maverick debt of $500 paid
1t off by giving him 1 200 head Of longhorn cat
tle whereupon Maverick turned them over to q
family of negro slaves with the understanding
that they should have the natural increase of
the herd.
But these negroes were a shiftless set and
allowed the cattle that thus came to them to roam
at viii in the long grass along Matagorda bay.
In few years there were hundreds Of these
unbranded cattle and people often asked Whose
cattle are theseT' to which the usual reply was
They're Mavericks" As time went on the term
mavericks came to be applied TO all unbranded
cattle-they were not Samuel A. Mavericks cat
tle they were just mavericks nobody's cattle.
Another account says that during the Civil
war nearly all Of Colonel Mavericks employees
entered the Confederate army. so that his cat.
tie ran wild and remained unbranded So they
were Mavericks cattle" until some one else
ciapped his brand them to make them his
own and gradually all stray cattle became ~mav-
erieks." Whatever the true story may have been
the fact remains that among all cattlemen who
might be famous because thousands of cattle
bore their brands. the most enduring fame came
to one whose cattle went unbranded
&c BY Western Newspapsr Uniea1