The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado: Volume 34 (The Western Frontier Library Series)

This is the premier history of the largest ranch in history. More than 800 cowboys and 6,000 miles of barbed wire on a spread of 3,050,000 acres, on the High Plains of the Texas panhandle, shoulder to shoulder with the New Mexico Indian Territory. Surviving cowboys and lawmen (and perhaps a bad guy or two) were interviewed in their twilight years, providing a wealth of stories from those days on the last part of the American nation to be "settled and civilized" as the XIT sold off its expanse to entrepreneurs, speculators, and families eager to homestead on land they owned.

A lot of work and research went into this book. This was one of the best no nonsense descriptions of the brave souls, good and bad, who ventured into this area and settled it with blood, sweat and great fortitude. A great view of the life of the cowboy and how they amazingly traveled all over this vast little known part of the world and conquered it, despite the problems that came with it. I am impressed.

I am not sure who made up that sentence but for once it is right. The XIT was an enormous economic undertaking for its time. Consider the following:- The name, XIT, supposedly stands for 10 counties in Texas. It just might. Spanning 10 counties along the northwestern most boundary with New Mexico, this single ranch totaled 3 million acres, an area 25 miles wide by 200 miles long.- This land was set aside in one parcel by the Texas legislature and, in a piece of snappy 1885 financing, was swapped for the construction of the beautiful Texas capital building that graces Austin, Texas today! XIT's establishment was largely responsible for settlement of an ongoing boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico.- The carrying capacity of the ranch was 300,000 head. Formed on the arid Llano Estacado, water needed to be pumped from underground aquifers. By 1900, 335 windmills and 100 dams watered the herd.- 1,500 miles of fence was built, dividing the ranch into 94 pastures. The barbed wire employed would have stretched 6,000 miles. Over 100,000 posts, five railcar loads of staves and one boxcar of staples were required. So many gates were necessary the first foreman simply ordered a boxcar of hinges.- Prairie fires were a horrific scourge. One fire alone burned an area 20 x 60 miles. The cowboys were the first organized firefighters in the neighborhood.This is an enormously good read full of amazing facts and statistics regarding what was, at the time, the largest ranch in the State of Texas. J. Evetts Haley interviewed many of the ranch's early participants and delivers a variety of eyewitness accounts about the growth and evolution of this massive enterprise. Filled with a myriad of colorful anecdotes about men, animals, rustling, cowboys, trail drives, intense winter storms and early Spanish and Native American influence, this is a wonderfully insightful look at early ranching as the initial settlement of Texas' final frontier occurred over 125 years ago.You will not be disappointed.

The first few chapters of the book are details of the founding of the XIT Ranch and may be a little boring for some. But the rest of the book is full of interesting details of life on the range and the cowboys. A far different picture than Hollywood portrays.

This was a gift for my husband. He likes the content of the book but says the print is the smallest he has ever had to read and wishes it was larger.