The last cattle king: the story of F. G. Oxsheer
White, Benton Ray
White, Benton Ray
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1984
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Abstract
The story of F. G. Oxsheer is a history of one of the greatest pioneer cattlemen of the Southwest. For more than thirty years he reigned as a "cattle baron" in Texas and Mexico, at times controlling more than a million acres and thirty thousand head of stock. He was one of the earliest settlers on the Texas High Plains and probably the first to introduce barbed wire and windmills, pointing the way for settlement of the entire region. At the turn of the century Oxsheer and C. C. Slaughter amassed the largest herd of registered Hereford cattle in the United States, shifting the center of purebred cattle breeding from the Mid-West to Texas and permanently altering the state's beef cattle industry. In Chihuahua, Mexico, Oxsheer was a major cattleman as well as an advisor and liaison for many American investors, including Frank Rockefeller. He was also in contact with Mexican revolutionary figures such as Pancho Villa and Abraham Gonzalez. Oxsheer's life story, however, is more than a list of a cattleman's personal accomplishments. It is the story of one man's struggle against drouths, blizzards, financial panics, and gunslingers. In his early years he was a sheriff and "town tamer" in Central Texas. It is also a story of the changing beef cattle industry and of a rancher who adapted to these changes. Above all else, F. G. Oxsheer's life is the story of an indulgent man's love and obsession for his family. Faced with the mounting extravagance and costly business failures of his sons, he risked all in World War I by speculating in feeder cattle in hope of amassing a fortune that no spendthrift family could consume. Prices collapsed at the end of the war, however, and he lost nearly everything he owned. Old and nearly deaf, he started building yet another ranching network, but with the Great Depression and the death of his oldest son in 1931, this indomitable eighty-one-year-old rancher was finally defeated.
Contents
Subject
Subject(s)
Oxsheer, Fountain Goodlet, 1849-1931--(Fountain Goodlet)Cattle breeders--Texas
Ranches--Texas
Ranches--Texas
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Genre
Dissertation
Description
Format
vii, 232 leaves, bound
Department
History