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Its pastures and wheat fields, cattle and horses, mansions. W.T. But selling the ranchor, worse still, permitting the court to liquidate itwould cost both sides dearly in taxes and prestige. Quietly and efficiently, Moore began to purge anyone friendly to the Wharton half of the trust: Jim Hughes, who most people had believed would succeed Biggs as trustee; Joe Roberson, the auditor who was being groomed as comptroller; Bill McBroom, the head of the oil division; and Ross Malone, the game warden. They were mailed while she was socializing in New York with her daughter, named after E. Pauls sister, Electra, and known as Electra II. To sum up the great legacy of the Waggoner Horse Program, it has produced three AQHA Hall of Fame Members (one Waggoner heir and two Waggoner horses): E. Paul Waggoner, Poco Bueno and Poco Lena; it is the number one All-Time Leading Breeder of NCHA Hall of Fame Members, Poco Lena, Poco Mona, Poco Stampede and Snipper W; it is the number three All-Time Breeder of AQHA Champions; and it is the Breeder of All-Time Leading Sires, Poco Pine, Poco Tivio, Poco Dell and Poco Bob. My first job was walkin hotscooling down winded horsesbetween chuckers. Subscribe Contact Us We love our customers, so feel free to visit during normal business hours. The Running W is the brand for the King Ranch located in south Texas close to Kingsville, Tx. Bucky Wharton didnt think of the ranch as his heritage until he was in high school at Culver Military Academy, in Indiana. In one, he wished Electra happy birthday and said, I bought you a $2,500 bond.. When it is necessary for them to be in the same room, they let third parties do the talking. She hosted parties of celebrities, movie stars, and barons of capitalism, including the daughter of J. P. Morgan. The W. T. Waggoner Ranch is five-time winner of the Texas Ranch Roundup and a recipient of the American Quarter Horse Association's "Best of the Remuda Award". Joe Roberson showed me how to read the books. W. T. Waggoner Ranch is located 13 miles south of Vernon, Texas with office headquarters in Vernon. W.T. Ranches, Farms and Land forsale in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas. Our cattle herd consists of approximately 10,000 mother cows comprised of 60 percent Hereford and 40 percent Angus/Hereford and Brangus/Hereford cross. Killen knew that Bucky was strapped with legal fees from the court battles of the sixties, Hughes told me. The majority of the ranch is in native pasture, supporting a mixed variety of palatable native grasses. Wichita Falls, the county seat of Wichita County, is approximately 20 miles east of the eastern boundary of the ranch. The party bagged seventeen wolves (some of which were really coyotes), and the president beat a five-foot rattlesnake to death with his quirt. It may be hard to truly comprehend the sheer vastness of the Waggoner Ranch. The facility is equipped to do embryo transfers and has both indoor and outdoor arenas, two barns, and over 30 stalls. In his entire life, he never drew a paycheck from anyone but the Waggoners. Either Guys two children would become their partners or E. Paul and Buster would have to buy them out. Bickering and backstabbing have been a way of life in the family. Instead of six bedrooms, it now has four. They work six and sometimes seven days a week, from daylight until the job is done, often late at night. Cowboys worry that the feud will destroy the ranch. After Buckys father died, Lula [the last of Busters four wives] stripped this place. Weve root-plowed, sprayed, pulled it up with a tractor, dug it up with a backhoe. | [14] After Electra Waggoner Biggs's death, her share was inherited by Electra Waggoner Biggs's daughter Helen Biggs and her husband, Gene Willingham. Bucky wanted the ranch to be divided, not liquidated. Moore resigned as trustee in the early eighties, at a critical moment for the estate. We love our customers, so feel free to visit during normal business hours. Hostile Comanches and Kiowas, plus a few foolhardy nesters trying to scratch out a living, occupied this endless stretch of grassland. These cows are bred to Hereford, Angus, and Charolais bulls. Or you draw a line and Ill take first pick.. At every opportunity, Dan Waggoner purchased land. Though he wouldnt talk about the lawsuit, he spoke freely about his bewildering transformation from New Mexico schoolboy to co-owner of one of the countrys most famous ranches. They plied him with extravagant gifts: engraved pearl-handled revolvers, diamond stick pins, junkets to Fort Worth, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. Because of Toms great influence on the horse industry, he became a founding member of the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA). Employees of the Waggoner Ranch horse operation concentrate on raising horses for working ranch purposes and strive to create athletic and trainable horses that are 15-hands tall with outstanding conformation. Some of these were bred strictly for ranch work, and others for the show arena, but they all had one thing in common, they were cow horses., Poco Bueno was foaled in 1944 and was purchased by E. Paul Waggoner in 1945. The other wants to sell the ranch and divide the assets. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vista Caliente - Signed Print by Woodrow M. Blagg - Cowboys - Waggoner Ranch at the best online prices at eBay! One closet was filled with fur coats, another with 350 pairs of shoes, and yet a third with the latest gowns from Paris and New Yorkand she was said never to wear one more than once. The sale of the iconic Waggoner Ranch, while marking the end of one era, creates for a new owner the opportunity to begin another. Historically, potable drinking water has been an issue on the Waggoner Ranch, and for that matter, on many other ranches in this area of North Texas. Look out there! This historic brand has been used in one form or another since that date, making it one of the very oldest brands in Texas. So it was the King Ranch whose legend was set down for posterity by the distinguished Texas author Tom Lea, while the Waggoners escapades were left to be recorded by the English author John Bainbridgea few passages in his 1960 book called The Super-Americans, about the excesses of Texass oil millionaires. Passing under a granite arch, we head down a long, paved driveway to Zacaweista, an Indian word meaning good grass. Its the name of both the ranch headquarters and the sprawling rock-and-wood home that Electra built in 1910. The squabbling that has ensnared the ranch for almost a century began on Christmas Day of. In early 1963 Buster filed a lawsuit, seeking a dispensation to sell shares, but he died before the matter was litigated. 20% off all products! . [4] It was acquired by Stan Kroenke, who is married to Ann Walton (niece of Sam Walton), in February 2016. Wharton, a Philadelphia blue blood she met while traveling in the Himalayas. By all rights the Waggoner Ranch ought to be the equal of the King Ranch in Texas lore. This iconic ranch property has been owned and operated by Waggoner heirs for approximately 165 years. Waggoner acquired more land. Apparently they just agreed to continue to disagree. What must be going through his mind? But the Willinghams arent talkingabout the lawsuit or anything else. Waggoner had built a great ranch, but in 1909 he was 57 years old and thinking about its future. Main interests of the company are ranching, oil, and approximately 26,000 acres in cultivation. Shortly after leaving, he got his draft notice, at the height of the Vietnam War. But even as board members, they were powerless to exercise any authority over the ranch, except to elect future trustees. Sep 1989 - Present33 years 6 months. Dan sent Tom (his son), who was only 16 years old at the time, to Kansas City with a herd of 5,000 steers. This is what shes good at, raising cattle. Hawley is 52 and has been at the ranch since 1972, working his way up from cowpuncher to straw boss to headquarters boss and finally to ranch manager. This is your chance to purchase the W.T. But the difference is that the cattle barons of the King Ranch led private, almost secretive lives, running their empire themselves and living on the land, while the Waggoners turned their ranch over to professionals, moved away, and pursued flamboyance. The entryway is glass, and there is a skylight over the vaulted ceiling above the staircase. It was a crash course, but I learned more in those six months than Id learned my whole life. In 1975 he married Joline, a young woman he had met in Albuquerque seven years earlier. He began buying land in western Wise County in 1870. The Waggoner Ranch is a historic north Texas ranch located 13 miles south of Vernon, Texas. The two sides have never been able to agree on a replacement. To Buckys surprise, the Biggs family responded by filing suit, asking the court to liquidate the estate. (Tom) Waggoner was heard to say, There I was with more than 5,000 big, wild steers, 50 sore-backed horses, $12 and 16 years of my life., In a 1956 article in The Quarter Horse Journal, Franklin Reynolds notes, It was possibly Tom Waggoners experiences with those sorry horses that caused him to resolve to always have good ones. Heath@WaggonerRanch.com Reply Anonymous February 3, 2013 at 8:00 PM They communicate by written memos, even though their offices are separated by only a few feet. As a consequence, the King Ranch scions moved comfortably in elite Texas social, political, and business circles, while the Waggoners never achieved the same degree of prominence. No Waggoner is buried on the ranch, only this one cowboy and a few early settlers in unmarked graves. Buckys home sits on one side of the square. The ranch originally operated under the name of Dan Waggoner & Son. Though their homesteads are only a few miles apart, the families of Bucky Wharton, the original Electras grandson, and Gene Willingham, Electra IIs son-in-law, might as well live on separate continents. Either way, your shopping cart will be active until you leave the store. As the frontier pushed westward, he expanded his herd and bought more land, in Clay and Wichita counties. was determined to keep Electra nearby. The house eventually fell apart and was torn down. Anne was the granddaughter of W.T.s friend Burk Burnett and hardly the type to sit around waiting for a roving husband. An additional 320 acres were then purchased in 1856 near the small town of Decatur, marking the first major expansion of Waggoner's estate. For the past 15 years, champions at both the National Reining Association and the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity have had Waggoner bloodlines in their pedigree. Both families are already fabulously wealthy, though the wealth is in the land rather than their pockets. But Buckys mother was not about to give up her sons inheritance without a fight. Each camp is equipped with a managers house, outbuildings and pens. Depending upon weather and moisture conditions, the ranch has been operated with 11,000 14,000 mother cows, plus calves, bulls and replacements; however, due to the recent drought, and in order to protect the ranch, current stocking rates have been reduced to around 7,000 mother cows/calves, plus replacements and bulls. On the map of Texas it appears as a great emptiness south of Vernon, occupied only by the thin strip of U.S. 183/283. Ranch Manager. Now available for sale on the open market, the Waggoner Ranch represents a singular opportunity so rare, it only comes along every 165 years or so. When my wife got sick with cancer, Gene and Buck got the company plane to fly her to M. D. Anderson. At the same time, they amended the bylaws to allow either party to give notice of termination within certain windows of timean amendment that would later prove crucial in the battle over the ranch. On the other three sides are a number of buildings constructed of identical reddish-brown stone, quarried on the eastern part of the ranch. One side wants the ranch divided equally but otherwise left intact. After her husband died, Electra II did not keep up the pressure on Bucky, as John Biggs and Killen Moore had done. "W. T. Waggoner Estate: Venerable, $725 million ranch about to be sold", American Quarter Horse Association: Waggoner Ranch, "You Can Now Buy a Texas Ranch That's the Size of a Small Nation, For $725 Million", "Waggoner Ranch: 1994 Best Remuda Winner", "NFL Owner Stan Kroenke Buys Texas Mega-Ranch Listed for $725 Million", "Legendary Waggoner Ranch Historical Combination of Then and Now", "Massive Waggoner Ranch, "last of the True West," is up for grabs", "Mammoth estate to be split up, auctioned", "Waggoner Ranch, among US' largest, listed for sale", "Ranch Dressing: Brokers Prep Giant Waggoner Farm for Sale", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Waggoner_Ranch&oldid=1097984814, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 July 2022, at 17:07. WHAT WE DO: We deliver strategic, brand-driven marketing communications solutions and deploy content that truly resonates . He was a nineteen-year-old Army sergeant at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when he learned that the lawsuits had been resolved and that he was heir to 50 percent of the W. T. Waggoner estate. He built the newlyweds an eighteen-room mansion in Fort Worth, where he later built a twenty-story office building as the base for his empire. He offered him pennies on the dollar for his fifty percent share., It was a paltry amount, Roberson agreed. Now the fate of the ranch was up to the court. Horses have always been big business at the Waggoner Ranch. Quanah saw his alliance with the Waggoners and other cattle barons as a way to better the lives of his peopleand his own to boot. All together, as one may imagine, with this many contiguous acres, there is an immense variety of land types on the Waggoner. Today, the W. T. Waggoner Ranch is managed by Sam Connolly of Bozeman. The horses are bred for working ranch purposes,and many still carry the bloodline of the famous quarter horse, Poco Bueno; Decendants of the Waggoner family sold the ranch to Kroenke-Ranches of Bozeman, MT in 2016. Waggoner Estate Ranch and related assets are now, for the first time ever, being offered for sale at a guideline listed price of $725,000,000. The Willingham house is a low, ranch-style brick structure, set behind a wall of trees. She took everythingthe furniture, even the light fixtures. Handsome and trim, Joline once competed in the New York and Paris marathons and still gets up before first light to run. Killen told Bucky, Take this, go back to New Mexico, and live your life. Slaughter (Slaughter Ranches), Jim Loving (JA Ranch) and Dan and W.T. Besides receiving revenue from these house lot leases, the ranch charges a daily use fee for boating and fishing on these lakes and also controls concession rights. All pens are very well maintained. Originally, Dan Waggoner burned the Reversed 3Ds into the right hip, thigh or rib of his cattle; however, as the price of hides increased, it made economic sense to only use one Reversed D in order to save more of the hide. For several years there were no further attempts to settle. ACRES Probably the nation's largest single-parcel ranch, the 510,000-acre property is about 175 miles northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and 12 miles south of Vernon, the county seat of. This land sits atop the Seymour Aquifer, while the ranch itself is bone-dry. [6] Guy Waggoner lived there with his wife Anne Burnett, the daughter of Samuel Burk Burnett and heiress of the 6666 Ranch from 1922 until their divorce. 27 of 56 28 of 56 Cowboys on the Waggoner Ranch brand calves in the spring of 1983. They chose the latter. On each of those transactions, Kroenke had relied on Leadbetter's counsel and the insights of Sam Connolly, general manager of Kroenke Ranches. They have been up since three and have had a hefty cookhouse breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, biscuits, and gravy. As their cattle business grew, the ranch needed more grazing land, especially as barbed wire began to close in the open range. He began buying land in western Wise County in 1870. I never saw him on horseback except during a parade. E. Paul was a famous charmer, though his wife, Helen, perhaps saw his romanticism through more practical eyes. We were talking in Buckys office, a large corner suite on the second floor of the long, low W. T. Waggoner Estate Building just off the main highway in Vernon. After that, negotiations were dead in the water. Gene remembered it differently. Add to cart. Poco Bueno died in 1969 and was buried in a standing position in front of the main ranch entrance. L. Proctor was foreman when I got here, and I made him my model., The ranch has about thirty cowboys, many of them second- and third-generation Waggoner employees. The history and the legend surrounding the Waggoner Ranch are as big as the ground it covers. Another formula was used to calculate mineral rights, pipelines, cattle, horses, equipment, other assets. The Waggoner Ranch Reversed D Brand is burned on the right hip of calves, and dates back to June 11, 1849. [6][12], When Guy Waggoner died in 1950, his sons sold their share of the estate to members of the family. A full moon hangs over West Diving Board Pasture. Thats where Electra Waggoner Biggs lived and where she kept her studio, Hughes tells me. The W.T. The Big Pasture, however, remained available for grazing and hunting. Choose from multiple print sizes, border colors, and canvas materials. Additionally, all livestock (cattle and horses), an extremely substantial inventory of rolling stock, farm equipment, pickups, trucks, etc., and considerable other personal property are included in this offering. [6] Thirty cowboys, and about 120 people overall, are employed on the property. The Waggoner Ranch was founded by a man named Dan Waggoner around 1854 when he and his son relocated to a 160-acre farm in Wise County, TX, after the untimely passing of Dan's wife Nancy in 1853. Daniel Vaughn is the countrys first barbecue editor, and he has eaten more barbecue than you have. Both ranches once covered more than a million acres. A drought in the last part of the nineteenth century made the land where the Waggoner Ranch now sits nearly useless for growing crops. (Tom) Waggoner was heard to say, There I was with more t, han 5,000 big, wild steers, 50 sore-backed horses, $12 and 16 years of my life.. John and Electra had two daughtersa third Electra and Helen. Over the years, a substantial amount of brush work has been done, and the mesquite canopy ranges from nearly extinct to moderate over portions of the ranch. It was notable for being the largest ranch within one fence in the United States. The Waggoner Ranch has been very well managed over time, and considering the recent four-year drought, the worst in recorded history, the ranch supports an overall good turf of native grasses. The only thing I can figure, it was give to them. We opened it up. Today the home is bright and welcoming. In the late sixties Bucky attended the University of the Americas, in Mexico City. In the Roaring Twenties, Electra Waggoner was the most infamous socialite in Texas. Cowboys are a different breed. Hawley has a cell phone handy, and the ranch radio under the dash crackles with voices from isolated posts miles away. The three smaller, 85,000-acre parcelsZacaweista, Four Corners, and Santa Rosawere gifts to his three children, Electra, Guy, and E. Paul. discovered oil while trying to drill for water, Hughes tells me. One of the striking sights as you leave the ranch is the sudden appearance of enormous green fields of cotton, wheat, and alfalfa. These are the men who made the ranch work while the Waggoners were off in Fort Worth or New York or Europe. Its a trade that suits only a select few for whom the life satisfies rather than restricts. Electra prevailed, as usual. By the time he was 27, Tom had full reins of the Waggoner cattle empire.. Approximately 30,000 acres are in cultivation. My dockets not that crowded, he said. . Dan Waggoner, who was born in Tennessee in 1828, moved to Texas with his family in the mid-1840s. After the first freeze, 120,000 geese will land on Santa Rosa Lake and feast on winter wheat fields. The many improvements and related assets mentioned above combine to offer the purchaser an extremely attractive depreciation schedule. Cowboys of the Waggoner Ranch. They are already being augmented by Kroenke Ranches' world-class commercial Angus herd. I didnt ask for the nuts and bolts, he said and walked away. Seymour, the county seat of Baylor County, is several miles south of the ranch, and has a runway that is 4,300 feet long. Back in town, I am introduced to 79-year-old G. L. Proctor, the old cowboy who Weldon Hawley has modeled himself after. The W.T. The main set of shipping pens are located along the highway at the Zacaweista Headquarters Division.