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Here at Black Springs in the Keechi Valley in 1857, the celebrated pioneer open range cowman and trail driver Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) located his first ranch on the extreme Indian frontier of Texas. From here he took part in the 1860 Pease River fight when Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured from Comanches, he served as scout and guide for the Texas Rangers during the Civil War and in 1866 he laid out the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail, over which thousands of longhorns were driven to market in New Mexico. In 1867 at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, his partner Oliver Loving died from wounds suffered in an Indian attack. Without the aid of an undertaker, Goodnight carried the body by wagon through hostile Indian territory for burial at Weatherford (24 miles southeast). Goodnight extended his cattle trails to Wyoming and to Colorado, where he started a ranch near Pueblo. In 1876 he established the first cattle ranch in the vast Texas panhandle, which became the internationally known JA Ranch. Involved in the preservation of the the area's native buffalo, he also bred the first herd of cattalo by crossing buffalo with range cattle. Goodnight's pioneer efforts led to the development of the frontier and the Texas cattle industry. (1982) |
