Small farmers and ranchers south, southeast of the small railroad town of Odessa Texas was having a hard time making a living. Their crops were devastated by roaming wild cattle.
Hundreds, thousands of Texas Longhorns would converge on a man’s crops and by sunup the next day nothing was left. Something had to be done or they would have to move off and leave their homes. No one could survive.
At last word was picked up in the largest saloon in Odessa that the Eddy- Bissell Livestock Company in southeastern New Mexico would buy all cattle brought to their ranch.
Eighteen men and five boys’ ages eleven to sixteen years old built a five acre corral. It was built strong out of mesquite limbs and tree trunks. The barbwire gate was sixteen feet wide with outreaching arms to funnel the cattle thru and into that corral. Feed had to be brought in first to feed all cattle until time for the drive. It was build straddling a small stream so water wouldn’t have to be hauled in. It took two months rounding up just over twenty five hundred head of longhorns. Now to start that long cattle drive two hundred miles west to Eddy, New Mexico and the Eddy-Bissell Livestock Company. Grab your copy by clicking here.
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