Across The Fence: Charles Goodnight – A Man of Indomitable Spirit (Part II of II)

"The savage had not found this prairie, til some who hired us came this way to make the grasses pay and pay for some raw greed no wise and wary regard for grass could satisfy. The old ones wept, and so did I." (From the poem "Anthem" by Texas native, Buck Ramsey: Jan. 3, 1938 – Jan. 9, 1998)

Until the 1930s, the Great Depression of 1873 stood as the greatest financial crises, in Europe and North America. The rapid expansion of the railroads had consumed most all available investment capital and yet the railroad industry had yet to make any substantial return on those investments. Cash reserves in New York banks dropped from more than $50 million to a mere $17 million and bank closures were massive.

Fifty-five independent railroad companies went broke and another 60 declared bankruptcy. The U.S. Treasury announced that silver would no longer be the standard for U.S. coinage and the entire silver mining industry collapsed. Record high unemployment swept the nation and the market for beef plummeted.

With declining demand for beef, rangeland was quickly overstocked and the scarcity of grass was devastating to the cattlemen. Charles Goodnight's empire collapsed.

But Goodnight was not a quitter and neither was he a slave to the almighty dollar. In 1866, while he and Loving blazed the trail from Texas to New Mexico, he fought off the Comanche who tried to steal their cattle and take their lives. He led his men across a land that had previously been known as the cattleman's graveyard and proved that it was a viable route. At one point on the drive, they were compelled to push the cattle more than 80 miles without water. For three days and nights Goodnight went without sleep as he coaxed the herd onward. When they finally came near to water, the herd stampeded and many head were lost, bogged down in the quicksand that sucked them down to their deaths.

But Goodnight did not quit.

After a portion of the herd was delivered to Fort Sumner, Loving continued on to Colorado with the rest of the herd. Goodnight packed a mule with supplies, and carrying the $12,000 in gold that they had received from the sale, he headed back to Texas to put together another trail herd. During his return trip something spooked the mule. The panicked pack animal took off with all the supplies and was never found. Without food and without water, Goodnight and his companions continued the journey back to Texas. Exposed to nature's whims and the ever-present threat of Comanche raids Charlie pressed on with no provisions and $12,000 in gold.

But Goodnight did not quit. He later said: "Here you are with more gold than you ever had in your life, and it won't buy you a drink of water, and it won't get you food. For this gold you may have led three men to their death – for a thing that is utterly useless to you."

From that time on, Goodnight lived not for the money but for the adventure and satisfaction of the endeavor, the test of skill in planning and the personal reward of success.

And so it was, that in the fall of 1875, after nearly all of Goodnight's wealth and holdings were gone, he did not quit.

With 1,600 head of cattle, Goodnight and Panchito headed south out of Colorado into New Mexico. On the upper Canadian River Charlie established a winter camp for the herd and leaving the cattle there, he and Ponchito rode in to the Texas panhandle in search of grass, virgin grass where cattle had never before grazed.

Goodnight knew and understood the ways of nature. He knew of the fragile balance between man, the land and the elements. Goodnight was not a man to conquer and use up the land but one who would learn to live with it.

At the headwaters of the Red River, near the center of the Texas panhandle, Goodnight and Ponchito found what they were looking for at a place named Palo Duro (Hard Stick) Canyon. Here was water, grass, abundant game and natural shelter. The second-largest canyon in the U.S., Palo Duro stretches across the panhandle for 70 miles and spreads out from 6 to 20 miles wide. The canyon floor lays nearly 1,000 feet below the sprawling, flat expanse of the Llano Estacado (The Staked Plains). It would be there, in Palo Duro Canyon, that Goodnight would build another empire, but even more, he would leave a legacy that would live long after his mortal life had ended.

It is quite likely that Goodnight knew of Palo Duro Canyon and had it in mind when he left the cow camp in New Mexico. During his time with the Texas Rangers as a scout and in skirmishes with the Indians, he must have known the area was a stronghold of the Comanche. If he had not been there he would have certainly heard about the military expedition of little more than one year prior, in 1874, when troops under the command of Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie removed the Comanche and Kiowa Indians from the canyon, slaughtered their horses and relocated them to reservations in Oklahoma. The canyon had been occupied by Native Americans for more than 10,000 years and was occupied by the Apache in 1541when Coronado explored the region. With the removal on the Comanche, Palo Duro Canyon was up for grabs and Goodnight seized the opportunity with both hands.

Returning to the New Mexico cow camp, Goodnight and Ponchito stayed with the herd during calving and through the summer. In early fall, they began to move the herd to Palo Duro. By October 1876 they arrived at the rim of the canyon and after scouting out the old Indian trails found the best route to drive the cattle in. At that time there were still large numbers of buffalo grazing in the canyon and the cowboys had some difficulty in driving the buffalo away to make room for the cattle. It took the outfit two full days to pack supplies into the canyon and drive the cattle down the steep trails to the canyon floor. Once the herd was settled Charlie built his first temporary cabin, a small dugout using abandoned Comanche lodge poles for rafters. Later he would build a larger, three-room ranch house for Molly, building the structure from native timber found in the canyon.

After cattle and crew were settled, Goodnight retuned to Denver where he met with John G. Adair, a local broker, and borrowed $30,000 to expand the ranch. Adair loaned the money and also became a two-thirds owner of the Palo Duro ranch and from that time forward the outfit was known as the JA Ranch. Charlie was a one-third owner and was paid an annual salary of $2,500 to manage the operations.

When Goodnight returned to the ranch in May 1877, Molly was there with him driving a wagonload of supplies. Adair and his wife accompanied them along with a handful of cowboys who had driven 100 Durham bulls that would sire the JA herd.

In 1878, Goodnight blazed the Palo Duro to Dodge City Trail and delivered the first JA herd to market, a trail that was used for many years after by cattlemen in the Texas panhandle. In the fall of that year, starving Comanche came off the Oklahoma reservations to hunt the ever-diminishing herds of buffalo. The scarcity of buffalo led to the obvious solution, killing cattle. It was during that time that Goodnight made an agreement with Comanche Chief Quanah Parker and provided two beeves every other day to feed Quanah's people.

Despite Goodnight's kind-heartedness, he was a strict foreman and enforced his rules against gambling, drinking and fighting. Together with the foremen of the Matador and Spur ranches, they refused to hire cowboys who had been discharged for theft or drunkenness. Goodnight would not tolerate abuse of JA horses and would fire a man on the spot for any infraction. And he did not play favorites among the men – he demoted Adair's son for gambling and fired his brother-in-law.

In the years that Goodnight managed the JA, the ranch expanded to holdings of 1,325,00 acres of rangeland with herds in excess of 100,000 cattle. Breaking out of the JA partnership in 1888, Goodnight bought 160 sections of land and continued his ranching endeavors until 1900 when he downsized to only 60 sections of ranchland. Goodnight, with the help and support of his wife and partner, Molly, pioneered the practice of crossbreeding for herd improvement and practiced range management that was decades ahead of its time.

Fighting Indians, leading cattle drives and building cattle empires took men of rugged character and dogged determination. Such men were often a bit "rough around the edges" and Goodnight was no exception. His religion may have been a bit unorthodox but his church was found in all of creation. However, to please his wife, in the final years of his life, he joined a church and was baptized. When asked what church he had joined, he replied, "I don't know, but it's a d-----d good one."

Goodnight died on Dec. 12, 1929, but his legacy remains.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award-winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. Contact Tim via email at [email protected]