Document text
PIC•!Y "lre?`"! Prt
Phipps, 'oody
Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. 49
Frank March, 421„ was born on Jeff
Singleton's, his grandfather, ranch in
Borden co. Texas. Frank learned to ride
at an early age, and took the plea* of a
regular cowhand at 10 Yrs. At 18r he was
employed by the Tahoka Land Cattle Co.,
as a top hand. He attended a railroad
celebration at 23, and quit the range for
more such celebrations. He has been with
the Ft. Worth Stook Yards since he. was 23,
and now resides at Lake Worth, His -story:
Pegs 11
FC
“while I'm not as old as same of the old trail hands, I
fecl I've experienced eons of the conditions you want to know about.
I was born right on the lest Texas range before they had many houses
out there. In feet, I was born in a dugout on September the 10th,
1.889, in Borden county, e.lexes.
"My grandfether ran a big ranch of about 30,000 head. Ills
,brand was the 'A Triangle'. To make it, you first burn the A, then
.burn a triangle after it. His name was Jeff Singleton, elle, he was
great Tnd1Pn fighter. I recall many nights spent in the old dugout
'while I VP.9 just a kid, and heering him tell about his experiences
with the indiens. If I could remember than now, you'd be ablc to
,write a book as big is that there, 'Gone With lhe
"I -ill tell yAl. about something that happened to him vhile
1 was a kid. in and Jim Fridge, Iv.* later owned a pretty good size
rPnch in Shackelford county, was out hunting strays. Jim was working
is n regular cow hand at that time and granddad was short of hands
so he was out with him. Well, they come across an Indira that must
have ben sooting the place because he was by himself and pretty
cagy.Tte must have known all the tricks of Indian warfare because
grand
ihe got/dad to shoot Al his *hells from his six shooter without one
hit, then charged. When grandad saw the Indian, had him, he mounted
tees, e)edy
ngelor-
rrant o., 1st. 7
-?nge 12
hose and took out after Jim, who had run off when he first sew
Indien. Tin's mount wasn't so not, end eranddad had about the
t honflesh in that country so he could outride either the Tndinn
Indien almost won the battle because he shot an arrow
d I hit grendded in the beck, and almost on his beck bone. Fe
on eith thet errow in his back 'til he caught Jim, had Jim work
e arrow out of his beck, tex)k his six shooter sway from 'lin, rode
k to the Indian and killed him. his didn't do euon demaee to
anddad either becaese he died of old age in
"es I said, this indien must heve been a scout because e
eil hand came threueh, eoing over int) '7ew e•xioo to trail drive
herd for the flet Tanch, and said he'd seen Indienesign to the
rtheest. This meant that e troun of lndiens were in our section,
d nine chances out of ten,' they wnnen't there for any eoed.
peated that they were on the warpath so everybody thet went eny-
ere, cerried el 7 the elns and shells they could find rope for.
ne day, it was necessnry for all the hands and erandded
be !Away fro-: he dquerters so they asked my erandmother to go
th teen. The hed aoee clotheo to wash and clean so she refused
seyine, 'F,eckon es boy I be fn taking care of myself for a 1 ng
e so guess I'll take my chences rut here'.
eey'e been keeeine me tied up out in the yard eith a
ong leather strine hernes, tnnt they fixe6 to my sheelders like
seen dogs in the park since then. She took me inside and let
1-7 ereend for awhile. 11 of a sudden, she erebed mee-nd stuck
under a box we usually kept full of kindling. -Then she said, 'If
let out a peep, the Indifns will get you and out y)ur hair off
.uoy Pegv J:3
,angelore
'larrent 1o., ist. 7C
ri ht down to the akin. Then you'll freeze to death'. I heard her
open the door, lock it, pick up a bourd in the roof of the dugout,
end 30r le. baci: in. Years later, heard her telling abut it and she
said that she sew the Indi.na coming, hid me, then went out and
locked the door on the outside, laying the key in the door, nicked
up the board I spoke of, and got beck into the dugout, !Ading in a
closet where the ar-:unition and guns were kept. She herd the
7ndifns ride up to the coor, walk around awhile, then ride off.
'e all thought thet when they sern thr key in the door, they just
figured thet the folks were one but not very far, end were afraid
to burn the place because th• t would bring !-11 the hands and they'd
have a Iittle trouble.
-Tou know, the kids of nowadays look forward to 2hristmes
and all the holidays. I lo)ked forward to the 3pring and ?all trips
to the closest trading post. bilene, "exas, was the closest for
awhile, and that meant a 10 day trip, allowing for a days or so to
hang er)und town and find out about what the other r-nges were doing.
et to go because there was always the danger of somebody
holdin you up, drowning in swollen streams, or getting lost. IT
ke.)t watch for the war:ons, and when I saw tae colAng, :'d alarm
everybody, get ny pony, ',rince, and go to mr.t them.
-These wegonswould be loaded with barrels end sacks of
grub but I looked for just one thing. nder all the sacks, 1'd
alwas find a sack of candy. "Ivy alw-ys boutt the candy first,
and nut it on the boo so I'd be willing to help unload what 7
could ca'ry before teke off with my prize, he barrels would
be filled with whiskey, syrup, and any liquid stuff, and the sacks
would be coffee, sugar, flour, and what could he carried in sacks.
Phipps, 40)dy
Rangelore
.,Arrant 3o., 1st.
Page 44
illey tried to carry everything they could in sacks. :he barrels in
those da:;s weren't so hot. atey'd come to pieces after so long e
trip across a rocky trail. fhey were banded together by wooden
bands, whereas, the barrels of today are banded b strips of steel.
:be barrels were half a hogshead, and a hogshead. he hogshead
barrels were a whole lot bigger than those of today.
"I used to be pretty tough as a kid. One of the things I'd
do 'til he bar-els were !Al broke up, was to get in one and roll
down a hill. T saw Prince at the bottom of the hill one day, and
tried to aim the barrel so's I'd roll under him and give him a big
scnre. I got in. and got started, bug T didn't figure on ?rince see-
ing me and turning around. He turned his tail toward the brrral,
tild et the right time, kioked back. be barrel we just kicked to
pieces with that one kick, and I It is the worst scared kid in that
part of the country. It was lucky for me that I was so fix d in the
berrl!1 at the time of the kick thalt he didn't hurt me.
"I was never allowed to go on the rlIndups because the cattle
sca.tered all over the country. Mere wasn't t fence in thrt part
of the country except where a men had a garden or so, ot had a remuda
corral so the only thing that stooped the dritters was (mass and
water, and shelter when the weather got cold. In those days, the
grass grew as high as n man's knees. 'That stopped the grass was
when the cowmen stopped burning the mesquites down,and the mesquites
took the country over.
"ry work ,til I wvs about 13, was right around the ranch
herdquarters. r took the plcse of a yard toss nnd 'tended to the
hosnes, the few 71,11 cows, and brought in the wood when net'ded.
"After I was 13, about the onl, home I ever knew was around
Phipps, :L)ody
7tengelore.
2arrant Co., List.
Page I
the chuck wegon more than nine months of the year. II only reoreation
was in shooting, riding and roping. I learned to shoot a rabbit or
anything else while in a feat ride. I learned to rope the same way
because it was neoessrry on the range to know these things. I never
did get to go to town when they went after rations hi -cause they were
always short P hand with the work.
"This thing of living around a chuck wagon gets monotonous
but if ylu don't know anything else, you don't mind it so bad. /Air
food was cooked by old Jim, an ex -Slave nier that was the only
ni;.er I ever saw 'til I was 23 years old. re was a quite old cuss,
just like r11 the rest of the fellows my granddad hired. 2hey'd
set around, all hunkered up end smoke by the hour when they weren't
working. I later found out that my grl-mddad had warned them not to
talk about the outlaws and rustlers and dif erent places they'd
becn 14 order not to get my fe t itching to go someplace. It worked
because I never did crave to go any place. I didn't care about
going to town after they told me that they needed men to take care
or the cattle and I was a men now.
Our food was mostly, beans, sour -dough biscuits, or'Sinkers•
black coffee, end beef or antelppe. According to what the co3k had
to give us. he fntelope rrn in herds and I've seen over 500 in
one herd. lie way we'd do WPS to shoot a number of them and cure
the meat so it'd kef-p. Iv cook made what we called, 'Jerk'. It
vms ntelope meet after it bad been dried, and cut into strips.
men we thought we wouTd be out all day, we'd take several strips of
it in our pockets, and when we got hungry, we'd out off a pleat, like
you do tobacco, end stick it into our mouth. *e'd chew this 'tilt
the taste left it, spit it out and get another chew. /t wasn't as
Phipps, oody !,age !ei
Rengelore
Tarrant 0o., Dist. '7 ?C
gold as setting down to eat a meal but it had going hungry bent a
mile.
"Most renohes hed special bosses for different ports of
the oow work but we trained all our bosses to do any part of the
work, 3ome bosses wouldn't pick the work up so well, and granddad
would sell them off with the rail market roundup. he howses that
stood the test had to know how to trail a critter through the herd,
stop and set down when the noose was about to drop on the o ittei"s
head after the weddy had throwh it, and other tricks that an
ordinary hoss will, naturally plok up.
"The hoes buster was a man who really knew his bosses.
There was a Dapple Grey stallion that rnn with r' herd of wild
mustenge end sired all the wild bosses on the place. 9e was bought
for the purpose of breeding these Mustangs, and all the Mustang
stalliohs were trapped and sold off.
-"When T said, 'Tranped*, it might have sounded like they
trap but the business of getting these hosses was to chase
the ,;•1 for three or four days. The hosses would trevel in a circle
around where they were used to eating and drinking end hanging out.
'Ale hose buster of course, was extra weight on his hose and he
couldn't pos-ibly hope to catch a wild boss but he'd have in at
different parts of the circle with relay bosses. list is, the
buster would chase the wild herd 'til he neared a man with another
hos7:, then he'd give the man his hoes, mount the other hosts and take
up the obese again. 7tis way, the hoases would be without wetor end
food for three days or so, and they'd be less wary of a trap.
the buster would get help, and they'd drive the herd into a blind
oenyon, e canyon that only had one entrance, and when these bosses
P ipps, -Ioody
flangelore
llarrant Co., Dist* ;7
page 0
came to th end of the canyon, a man that had stayed there for this
purpose, would close up the way .out. The hoes would then find th t
they'd been trapped in a corral. They'd mill wildly around, then
the stallion, who always led the herd, would discover the way they
ccoe in, and he'd call the mares to him. r)ince he was such god
hossflesh, he'd be able to jump the corral but most of the others
wouldn't be able to do it. Then they did, nnd one of them happened
o be the one that the hose buster wanted, he'd crease it. "hat is,
'he'd shout the hos at the base of the mane just behind ears.
'Chat would numb the muscle at the top of the neck, and the hose
wouldn't be able to move for 1 -ng enough to let the hoes wrangler
hog tie it so it oo.A.dn't move 'til they were ready for it to move.
"Beoause I could use a rope good I was altvys used to tie
the hose s after they'd been creased. One time, after //d begged so
hard to %et them to let me crease one, I was allowed to do the
creasing. (!fll, I °reseed but too low, so I killed the boss and it
was a benut. I never got another chance to c -ease another one.
":he hoses were always busted right there where they were
'caught. 'his was neoessFry beoause if they got away befor- they
/ere busted, all the work would be wasted. ffter the hose wrangler
got the -7 pretty well buste6, I was allowed to finish the job. I was
known as, 'Brom'', because I busted so many hvonos. That nick name
didn't follow me though.
"By the time I was 18 years old, I'd become a regular top
cow hand and was a fair hose wrangler. I had a string of eight
hostels In the remuda that were as good as the best to be found am/
where. The reason they were so good was because I broke them in
myself and I'd never ,lost a hoes by accident.- I said by accident,
Thipps, 'rioody
Rangelore
rarrant co., nist.
rage q9
FC
Bronco, New ”exico. he headquarters wows where the oity of ?ahoks,
texas, is now. Old Bill Petty was ram Nodding the spread for the
company, and he was one of the best all around cow punchers in that
section of the country. He had to be for it was such a big spread.
His job must have ben kind of like the President of the United
5tetes is because the ram rods on that spread didn't live very long
after taking the reigns over. I use to know about four men's names
who wel'e foremen over the spread, and died several years after
taking over.
"Liesides handling from 30 to a 100 punchers, they had to
keep track of from 1000000 to 200,000 head of cattle, manage trail
drives to diferent sections of the united States, and all the
different detaili. Now, T don't now whether the job killed them
or not. I just know they died like T said they did.
--he conditions T spoke of as being on my grandded's
ranch were the same on the T Bar. he roundups were pretty much
the same, the hosses were handled the same, the branding and the
shinning the same, the staying away from the ranch the same
except we had dugouts in different places where we cIuld go if the
weather was very bad. Just think of iti Nine months of the year
when you didn't see hide nor hair of the headquarters. You sew the
'ram rod, yes. You saw the foremen, yes. That you didn'; see was
any signs of civilization. I put in five years on the Bar with
about the same routine.
",e, boys began to ho -ring rumors from one, then. another
about the rail road was coming to our seotin of the country.
I knew men who were GO and 70 years old who hed never seen a train,
nor even tracks. I was 23 there, and had never seen all, this so my
Zhipps, oody
7angelore
arrant Co., A.st.
'Age ylo
WWI
curiosity was arroused a -plenty. 7e finery got word that the
railroad was ,7,oing to have a big dame and barbecue when the end
of the line reached 0:Donnell, Texas. '3e11, that was all I wanted
to know. dance and a barbecue I just made up my mind thet I
intended to be there for the doinge.
,"One big day, word came out that all the boys that wanted
to go could take off with pay. 3oyI, what a day* We boys from the
Bar made quite a company when we got to 3:Donnell. 719 looked like
ox's Army. rvery one of us had his glad rags on and were ready to
play. .fter we got there, we fca.nd quite a few there from'the,other
places. It the end of the day, there wes at least 5,000 pea there.
"All the surrounding ranchos had even sent their chuok
weons in, and the railroad had a dancing pavilion built. Tons of
nett was barbecued in advance but not near enough for they had to
barbecue eve:7 day. :f some loose ropers came through the country_
at that time, they could have sure took many a head with them.
"Of course, there were quite a good many drunks but they
were handled in a way that would make a Western officer's heart
turn pea green with envy. a fellow by the name of Buck ?eagle, who
was one of the best shots in the country, weighed about 175 pounds
tut could thro w any man he'd ever met la a fair wrestling match,
and I guess in r foul top, who was made a peace officer by the one
armed JO. The JO. was an old man who was given that °Igoe because
they never neeed a low in the town 'til the (ley of the barbecue
prve,: they'd have to have some kind of law. Old Buck had a system
with him. 7e didn't want to hurt anybody because he wented to live
there after the doings was over. iruth of the matter was, that he'd
been rail roaded into the job. The J.P. just deputized him and if
Phipps, ,:oody
psge 411
Pendelorg
arrant co., Dist. ,7
FC
he'd have refused, he'd have been violating the law. It wasn't
fir but :.ock had a rule that he'd tackle anything once, so he took
it over. 7e made the 3.7. buy him about 300 fo t of the strongest
lasso rope in the town, then out it into 10 foot pieces.
"Then be foond anybody drunk, he'd men handle them 'til
he got them to F, grove of saplings, tie their hands to the tree over
'their heads, then tie their feet to the base of the sapling. They'd
hang there 'til they got sober enough to be taken down, then Duck
would take them down. lais stunt showed folks that drunks could be
handled if a fellow used his heed end was able to do what tactk was.
Somebody iq the c owl most hove been able to write stories beoeuse a
story abut the barbecue and a picture of the drunks, about seven of
them at one t met-wes shown in the olice Gazette, ell hanging from
the trees.
"This week of fun spoiled my range career if I wes due one
because I took right out after the barbecue and dance to An't "iiorth,
end I've been here on the Stock Yards ever since. I thought that if
e fellow could hove thr.t much
do in the middle or the line.
so much fun anywhere as I had
to work as hard, or harder to
difference fr= this life, es
they're aIl trying to dig you
fun at the end or the line, whet could he
-2ruth of the matter is, I've never had
there that day Pt 0:Donnell. I've had
make living right here. The only
I see it, y)u see lots of people, and
out of what you have if you have anything
and if you don't have lything, they don't care anyting about you.
"Out there in the open, you live the heLlthiest life a
men could oosuibly live.
you, and every man was for
You on y ate the rood that was good for
you. If you ne,ded anything, you could
have all that anybody had if it was neceszary.