The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947 Page: 349
582 p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Lizzie e. ffohiiso:- A Cattle
Queemi of zexas
EMI LY JONES SHELTON
LITTLEFIELD, Blocker, Kleberg, Elwood, Searight, and Lizzie E.
Johnson-even a partial list of cattle kings of Texas is
incomplete without its cattle queen. Lizzie E. Johnson began
her venture into the cattle business as early as 1871,1 when she
was only twenty-eight years old and as yet unmarried. In those
days women with business acumen were not envisioned by the
most active imagination, and it was not the custom for women
to take an interest in business, much less to engage in it them-
selves. There were, however, two women in addition to Lizzie
Johnson who were known as cattle queens. One was Mrs.
Amanda Burks, who made a trip up the Chisholm Trail with
her husband, W. F. Burks, in 1870 and was later referred to
as "Queen of the Trail Drivers."2 The other was Mary Taylor
Bunton, a bride who went up the trail with her husband in 1886."
Prior to her trail-driving experience, Elizabeth E. Johnson's
life had been dominated by two interests, education and religion.
Known almost from childhood as Lizzie, she was born in Mis-
souri in 1843, the second of six children of Professor Thomas
Jefferson Johnson and Catherine Hyde Johnson.4 She was a sec-
ond cousin of Albert Sidney Johnston."
Thomas Jefferson Johnson, Lizzie's father, established the
Johnson Institute in Hays County in 1852.0 The Institute was
the first school of higher learning west of the Colorado River
in Texas.7 Johnson was among the pioneer schoolteachers who
came to the Republic of Texas as missionaries. He arrived
in Texas in the latter part of the 1840's after teaching in
'Marks and Brands of Travis County, I, brand number 45.
2W. F. Burks later owned the La Motta Ranch, thirty miles southeast
of Cotulla. Gus L. Ford, Texas Cattle Brands (Dallas, 1936), 221.
8Mary T. Bunton, A Bride on the Old Chisholm Trail (San Antonio,
1939), 465.
4Information on photograph of Elizabeth E. Johnson in Johnson Family
Album, custody of Mrs. John E. Shelton.
5Mrs. John E. Shelton, Statement Concerning Elizabeth E. Johnson
Williams, MS., Archives, University of Texas Library.
1T. U. Taylor, "Johnson Institute," Frontier Times, XVIII, 224.
7Mrs. John E. Shelton, Statement Concerning Elizabeth E, Johnson
Williams.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947, periodical, 1947; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101117/m1/424/?rotate=90: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.