[6] Meanwhile, Electra Waggoner Biggs became a renowned sculptor. [3] It spans six counties[3][6] and is half as large as Rhode Island. It was notable for being the largest ranch within one fence in the United States. W.T. Oil was a nuisance, and any good cattleman knew the value of water. The second Electra was, like her namesake, a globe-hopping socialite (she was once linked romantically to Cary Grant by Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons), but she also was an acclaimed artist, who knew all the celebrities of her day and sculpted busts of many of them. Bucky and Gene run the operation from offices in the W. T. Waggoner Estate Building. Its a constant battle. Over these past three decades, Bucky has absorbed every inch of this ranch and most of its colorful history. When they presented the map to Gene, they say, he asked for more details. Some people think that the last chance for a settlement died with Electra II. [7] Parts of it can be seen from highways U.S. 183 In 1877, Burk Burnett (6666 Ranch), Col. C.C. Buster too had multiple spouses (four, to be exact), but his only heir was A. To make the trip, Dan gave Tom $12, a group of drovers, and 50 saddle horses, all of which had sores on their backs from heavy use. The last e-mail I got from him, he testified, [was] five years ago.. Thats what folks in Vernon, Electra, Seymour, and other towns near the Waggoner Ranch are asking as they watch one of Texass greatest ranching empires teeter on the brink of disintegration. John and Electra had two daughtersa third Electra and Helen. His daddy worked this ranch for fifteen years, and Shane grew up on Cowboy Row. Or you draw a line and Ill take first pick.. The Waggoner Ranch Store is located in the Waggoner Estate building in Vernon Texas. [9] In 1902, W.T. Today, the W. T. Waggoner Ranch is managed by Sam Connolly of Bozeman. (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.. Now 56, Bucky is one of the protagonists in the battle over the future of the ranch. This will still be ranchland, for thats all its fit to be, but not ranching on the grand scale that allows men to be cowboys. Mrs. Biggs called ahead and had the director meet us on the front step. . Houses back then were very dark, with low ceilings and small windows. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. The terrain varies from fairly level to gently rolling, sloping and hilly, but there are areas of rougher breaks and scenic, very eroded, red clay badland. and 283. In one, he wished Electra happy birthday and said, I bought you a $2,500 bond.. Many thousands of additional acres of native pasture are suitable for cultivation, if desired. 940-552-2521 x:270. I ask him what he thinks of the family feud that threatens to end the way of life that he knew. Waggoner found oil while drilling for water. They married in 1969. He pointed to an impenetrable thicket of mesquite and told me, Thirty years ago we cleared that pasture, all the way to Beaver Creek. He kept the east side of the ranch, called White Face, for himself. 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. Buster received income from his share of the estate, but he had no role in the ranch management and was happy to leave the ranching to E. Paul. Historically, the Waggoner Ranch has been operated as a cow/calf ranching unit, with stocker cattle used for seasonal grazing on wheat fields. Consequently, climate data can vary over such a large area of the state. He had grown up in Albuquerque, where his mother, the third of Buster Whartons four wives, had moved after their divorce, when Bucky was two. The many improvements and related assets mentioned above combine to offer the purchaser an extremely attractive depreciation schedule. Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival Is More Than an Event. What he got was just the opposite. Cattle - W. T. Waggoner Ranch 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. I was there. When my wife got sick with cancer, Gene and Buck got the company plane to fly her to M. D. Anderson. Slaughter (Slaughter Ranches), Jim Loving (JA Ranch) and Dan and W.T. When I asked Joline if they had found any memorabilia from Electras time, she laughed. I think there were twenty-five or twenty-seven attorneys involved, he recalled. It is as much a part of the legacy as horses, cattle, oil, opulent mansions, divorces, and drunken sprees. Moore resigned as trustee in the early eighties, at a critical moment for the estate. Approximately 30,000 acres are in cultivation. The cattle will be sold, along with the trucks that haul them, and the vast pastures will be chopped up, and who knows what will replace them. "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. The land was used primarily to raise crops, beef cattleand horsesas well as for oil production. What the hell could he do with oil! Most sets of pens are capable of handling several thousand head of cattle at one time. Today, the ranch boasts 7 stallions and over 90 broodmares containing bloodlines of Poco Bueno, High Brow Cat, Peppy San Badger, Top Sail Cody, Smart Chic Olena, and Wimpys Little Step. Originally, the trust was supposed to expire after twenty years, in 1943, but the terms of the trust allowed it to be routinely extended in twenty-year increments until 1983. After a big wedding in Decatur, the couple honeymooned in Europe and then planned to settle in Philadelphia. To make the trip, Dan gave Tom $12, a group of drovers, and 50 saddle horses, all of which had sores on their backs from heavy use. Two large, privately-owned lakes are located on the Waggoner Ranch. Moreover, a sale would be taxed and so would the distribution of the money. They were mailed while she was socializing in New York with her daughter, named after E. Pauls sister, Electra, and known as Electra II. They chose the latter. In May, Judge Neely heard the motion for partial summary judgment and made his ruling. Moore astonished Bucky by trying to buy his stock in the estate. ACRES I remember my mother taking me to Fort Worth to talk to her attorney. Ahead was a legal battle over whether Buster had the right to dispose of property that Electra, his mother, had left in trust to him and his bloodline. A good cowboy does what the foreman tells him and waits for his paycheck and for the sun to go down., Now the sun is going down on the Waggoner Ranch, perhaps forever. W. T. Waggoner Ranch - LARGEST RANCH UNDER ONE FENCE 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. He began buying land in western Wise County in 1870. The Waggoner (Three D) Ranch had its beginnings in the early 1850s when Daniel Waggonerqv and a fifteen-year-old black slave trailed 242 longhorn cattleqv and six horses into Wise County. The color of this ground is the color of the ranch, Bucky told me as we bumped over the maze of rutted roads, he driving his Toyota Land Cruiser and talking nonstop and I jumping out to open gates. 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". Can College Sports Get More Absurd Than SMU Joining the Pac-12? We farm approximately 25,000 that we use to graze cattle and raise crops for sale and internal use. The two sides have never been able to agree on a replacement. For years, its two feuding clans have agreed on only one thing: They want to break up their vast eight-hundred-square-mile spread and close this chapter of Texas history. The farmers probably didnt need intimidating. We always meet with our employees present, and nothing is really handled. They have quarreled over which wells to cap or abandon, over control of the corporate airplane, over the purchase of bulls and the size of cow herds. Meanwhile, the Waggoner family tree was sprouting more branches. 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. In addition to Lake Kemp and Lake Diversion, the ranch boasts several other large private lakes, some of which, such as Santa Rosa Lake, are reserved for the exclusive use of the families. He usually dresses in jeans, a polo shirt, and cowboy boots; in the three times I was with him, he never wore a hat or tried to act like a cowboy. But there has been no substantial rain for days now, and we kick up a trail of dark red dust as we head toward Santa Rosa, the area that E. Paul inherited and where his daughter, the second Electra, grew up. [6], After W.T. Its pastures and wheat fields, cattle and horses, mansions. This well-renowned offering includes the 510,527 contiguous acres, together with all permanent improvements, approximately 41.67% of the mineral estate, all water rights, and all wind generation royalty rights. Hes not a large man, but his pleasant and unassuming manner and his quiet, considered confidence give him stature. 510,527.00 The facility is equipped to do embryo transfers and has both indoor and outdoor arenas, two barns, and over 30 stalls. The Willingham house is a low, ranch-style brick structure, set behind a wall of trees. W T Waggoner Ranch Brand Honoring Waggoner Ranch Family and Owners He either didnt care or didnt notice that E. Pauls clanespecially his socialite wife, Helenconsidered Electras line of the family to be tainted and Buster to be an irresponsible spendthrift, and they were plotting for the day when they could force the Whartons out. When Judge Tom Neely, who is in charge of the current lawsuit to break up the ranch, was a young attorney in a previous round of Waggoner lawsuits during the sixties, he and other lawyers found some of E. Pauls letters to Helen. (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. But selling the ranchor, worse still, permitting the court to liquidate itwould cost both sides dearly in taxes and prestige. TSHA | Waggoner Ranch - Handbook Of Texas The answer lies in the rich and rowdy heritage of the Waggoner clan. I just knew that life there was a lot different from life in Albuquerque. In 1963, when Bucky was fifteen, Buster Wharton died, leaving a will that gave his share of the Waggoner estate to his widow and his shotguns to Bucky. cattle inventory, horse inventory, horse facilities, brands . The Waggoner Ranch: The Largest Acreage in America Under One Fence Electra married A.B. Biggss brother-in-law was the president of General Motors, and he later named a Buick model for Electra. The main set of shipping pens are located along the highway at the Zacaweista Headquarters Division. Map: The Waggoner Ranch is really, really big, y'all - MySA Then he left the meeting and thats the last we heard. Photographs of his wife and children occupied a bookshelf beside four footballs labeled Coach Bucky Whartongifts from former University of Texas coach David McWilliams, whod invited Wharton to join him on the sidelines at several UT games. $720,000,000 W T Waggoner Ranch Brand Honoring Waggoner Ranch Family and Owners Framed Print by Richard W Linford. They buried him standing up, Hughes informs me. W.T.s granddaughter, Electra Waggoner Biggs was nationally known as a sculptress, and with her national notoriety, General Motors named their most luxurious Buick model the Electra and Lockheed Aircraft named a plane in her honor. Sachueista Gate - WT Waggoner Estate Ranch - Vernon, Texas The squabbling that has ensnared the ranch for almost a century began on Christmas Day of that year, when W.T. Several small on-site water wells are also located in this large block of farmland. Roosevelt remembered later: We broke into a lope a mile outside the limits, and by the time we struck the main street, the horses were on a run and we tore down like a whirlwind until we reached the train.. [6], In 1991, Electra Waggoner Biggs sued to be able to sell the ranch. Texas History: What's your opinion?: Cattle Brands - Blogger In 1869 Dan made seventeen-year-old W.T. 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. [6] Electra Waggoner mostly resided at Thistle Hill in Fort Worth, although her husband, Albert Buck Wharton, operated a livery yard and horse stables on the ranch. Wharton, a Philadelphia blue blood she met while traveling in the Himalayas. the estate. Judge Neely accepted this language. Joe Roberson showed me how to read the books. Concerned about the future of the ranch, W.T. As their cattle business grew, the ranch needed more grazing land, especially as barbed wire began to close in the open range. In early 1963 Buster filed a lawsuit, seeking a dispensation to sell shares, but he died before the matter was litigated. After Guy died, E. Paul and Buster faced the issue of what would become of his shares in the Waggoner estate. It doesnt seem real to even think about it, he says. (It still is, except for the magnificent Wise County courthouse.) There is also a rumor that the Willinghams have already bought a home in Fort Worth. Then, twelve years ago, the two branches of the Waggoner family that control the W. T. Waggoner estate, which in turn controls the ranch, locked themselves in a lawsuit no one can win. Hostile Comanches and Kiowas, plus a few foolhardy nesters trying to scratch out a living, occupied this endless stretch of grassland. The wooded river and creek courses offer exceptional cover and desirable habitat for native game. As land was cleared for settlement, he gradually moved west and by the late 1870s settled along Beaver Creek near Electra Texas. 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. This iconic ranch property has been owned and operated by Waggoner heirs for approximately 165 years. Sign up to hear from us about specials, sales, and events. He first settled on Catlett Creek near the site of present Decatur. W T Waggoner Ranch Brand Honoring Waggoner Ranch Family and Owners Canvas Print by Richard W Linford. She was strikingly pretty, with a long, sensitive face and dark, sparkling eyes. Deal of the Century: Waggoner Ranch - The Land Report [14] Her second cousin, Albert Buckman Wharton III, also known as Bucky Wharton, who was Buster Wharton's son, appealed to stop the liquidation. No one, it seems, wants to witness the breakup of a mythic Texas ranchexcept the Waggoner heirs. Oil production soon followed. As a boy, Bucky visited the ranch at Christmas and during the summer, but he was never close to his father and knew nothing about cattle or oil. The W. T. Waggoner Estate is the nation's largest ranch under one fence. 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.
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