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Publisher's Column
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By Tom Fenton
Given half a chance, El Paso businessman James Heard would relish the opportunity to tell you about the XIT ranch on which he was born, and how it helped finance the Texas state capitol.
After listening to Heard and confirming his tale, I thought I would pass along this interesting bit of Texas lore.
The XIT story begins in the late 1800s. Texans had outgrown their old state capitol building in Austin and there was talk of replacing it.
The state didn’t have a lot of cash to work with, but it did have a lot of land. When the nation of Texas became a state, it found itself in the unusual position of being sovereign over some 250 million acres – only about 10 percent of which was in private ownership through Mexican or Spanish land grants.
So Texas legislators decided to pay for a new capitol by bartering 3 million acres in 10 counties on the western edge of the Panhandle.
The property was to become the XIT Ranch. Heard will tell you “XIT” stands for “Ten in Texas,” a reference to the 10 counties it touched from the Oklahoma border 220 miles south along the eastern New Mexico line.
(Others dispute this, saying XIT was a cattle brand drawn in the dirt by a cowboy’s boot heel. The cowboy said such a brand would be near impossible for rustlers to change.)
In November 1881, fire gutted the existing state capitol and building a new one became a priority.
Plans were adopted for the largest (of course) state capitol in the country. A national search was conducted for a contractor that would construct the building in exchange for the land, and one was found.
Syndicates were formed to raise money needed for construction, and also to develop the ranch. One of the early investors, John Farwell, traveled to London, formed the Capitol Freehold Land & Investment Co., and returned with $5 million cash. Investors included a noble, the Earl of Aberdeen, and a member of Parliament.
The idea was to fence the ranch, install windmills and stock tanks and run cattle until the property could be farmed and eventually subdivided and sold.
The first cattle arrived in 1885, and eventually the herd grew to 150,000 head, enclosed and segregated by 6,000 miles of fencing.
Some 325 windmills were built along with 100 stock-tank dams. Unfortunately, cattle prices fell and the XIT never turned a significant profit from ranching. The operators were soon forced to begin selling off pieces of the XIT to meet British bond obligations.
The last cow was sold in 1912, and the last cowboy laid off not long after. Still, disposal of the last parcel of XIT land wasn’t completed until 1963.
Heard’s grandfather, James Richard Heard, entered the picture in 1929, just before the crash. With cash from the recent sale of cotton gins in Oklahoma, his grandfather bought six sections of the XIT, 3,840 acres, about 30 miles south of what is now Dalhart.
“There was no house on the land; so, for a year or so while building the house they lived in a dugout,” Heard said. He said the dugout was carved into the side of an arroyo.
Just about the time the house was completed, Heard’s grandfather died, leaving the ranch to his widow and eight children, including Heard’s dad, J.L. Heard.
Four boys, including J.L. and one daughter, stayed on with Heard’s grandmother trying to make a go of it. They raised cattle and wheat, borrowing heavily from the government with crop loans.
In 1935 James Heard was born in the ranch house his grandfather built. But by 1940, his dad had concluded his family could do better elsewhere. They moved to San Antonio, leaving his interest to those that remained.
His siblings and their families soldiered on, but unable to repay the crop loans, the government foreclosed on their ranch about 1944.
British investors, meanwhile, recovered all of their money as the ranch parcels were sold off.
In case you’re wondering how the 3 million-acre XIT compares with the famous King Ranch in south Texas, the latter has about 825,000 acres, not all of which is contiguous.
Comments or question? E-mail tomfenton@elpasoinc.com
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