The Espuela Land and Cattle Company: A Study of a Foreign-Owned Ranch in Texas Page: 17
xv, 268 p. ; ill., maps, ports. : 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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HUNTERS AND TRADERS
and tell where killings, or "stands" had been made by buzzards.
Thousands of them circled lazily high above the carcasses. I am told
they were never fatter than during the buffalo slaughter."
Gradually the millions of tons of wasted flesh were devoured
by scavengers or rotted. The odors of putridity vanished, and
the scenes of the killings were white with bleaching bones. This
was the sight which met the eyes of the first cattlemen who
began to arrive with their herds in 1878 and 1879. In the im-
mediate years which followed, while waiting for their herds to
increase on the free ranges, the cattlemen hauled the buffalo
bones to the nearest railroad and sold them for six dollars
a ton. This furnished money needed for flour, molasses, cloth-
ing, and other simple necessities. In 1883 a traveller observed a
rick of bones ten to twelve feet high and a mile long beside a
sidetrack in Colorado City. The bones were being shipped to a
sugar refinery in Louisiana to be used in the refining process.'
Indians and ciboleros killed buffalo sparingly for food. Ameri-
can hunters slaughtered wantonly for hides and a negligible
amount of meat. A third, though rare, type hunted for a dif-
ferent reason, sport. Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Russian
Czar Alexander II, as a guest of President Grant, made a safari
to the buffalo plains in Kansas. An English earl by the name
of Alesford did the same on the upper tributaries of the Colo-
rado north of present day Big Spring. To the Spur area came
Elliott Roosevelt, brother of Theodore. He journeyed from New
York to Fort Worth by rail in 1877. With a party of seven and
a wagon loaded with supplies and equipment, he proceeded to
Fort Griffin. From there on the party followed the Mackenzie
Trail westward. It entered what later became the East Pasture
of the Spur Ranch at the mouth of Duck Creek, and proceeded
diagonally to Camp Supply on Catfish Creek. This was good
buffalo country, but the slaughter was in full swing. The group
was never out of hearing of the professional hunters' guns.
Already the smell of death hovered over the area. Roosevelt
made inquiry as to where he could find an unmolested and un-
polluted range. He was told he might find it on the plains
above the Caprock. He proceeded northward, following one of
"Holden, Rollie Burns, 56.
11W. C. Holden, Alkali Trails (Dallas, 1930o), 17.17
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Holden, William Curry, 1896-. The Espuela Land and Cattle Company: A Study of a Foreign-Owned Ranch in Texas, book, 1970; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296831/m1/43/: accessed May 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.