The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 34, July 1930 - April, 1931 Page: 13
359 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Problem of Mainlaining Solid Range on Spur Ranch 13
upset the land policy of foreign companies. On October 2, 1902,
Horsbrugh wrote:
"I am having trouble with Gilmore over his sections. His wife
won't join in and sign [the deed] on the home section. I am
afraid she is a bit of a wolf, and he gets the worst of it in all
marital matters. However, he can sell me the other three sections,
and she can't raise a racket. Gilmore is a good man and looks
after the west pasture. I would like very much to have their home
section as it is an extra good one; [it is] fine land and a good well
of water; but she knows it too, and her relatives never forget to
let her know every time they can that it is her duty to get as much
for the place as she ccn squeeze out of this 'robbing, foreign com-
pany.' . . . They are having terrible times in other pastures,
especially south and west of us."34
The managers of foreign companies sometimes found it difficult
to get their home offices to act with sufficient dispatch to handle
effectively the "friendly nesters" in regard to purchasing their
lands. In complaining to his directors in London relative to their
slowness in authorizing him to close certain land deals with set-
tlers, Horsbrugh wrote on April 3, 1903:
"I can't hold them much longer, and this hesitation is a bad
thing. They [the settlers] are a very foolish and superstitious
people, and it is beginning to look to them that we are going to
disappoint them after all; and they are at no loss for advisers
who have carefully impressed that on them for some time.
Honestly I wish I had never gone into this business !"31
For years after the acquisition of lands from settlers who had
"lived it out," ranchmen had to be constantly vigilant lest a
"nester" file anew on some section on the grounds that the title
was faulty and therefore its acquisition by the ranchman illegal.30
Horsbrugh wrote in August, 1900, "I am afraid to leave the ranch
as some claim, or a shadow of a claim, is being put on our land
every day. One man thinks he has found a vacancy north of the
Burleson lands. Our land is on trial."37
a'Spur Records, X, 586.
"3Spur Records, XI, 31.
"J. E. Ketner vs. Charles Rogan, Commissioner, and C. C. Slaughter,
Texas Reports, Vol. 95, p. 559. Also W. C. Logan vs. J. W. Curry and
R. F. Arnold, Texas Reports, Vol. 95, p. 664.
"TSpur Records, X, 220.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 34, July 1930 - April, 1931, periodical, 1931; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101091/m1/17/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.