I lived here as a bachelor until I married in 1894, after which I continued at Adobe Walls until about 1902, when I sold my ranch and moved to Plemons, Texas. There I lived two years, and found living in town worse than it could have been in jail. I decided to go still further west, and in 1906 homesteaded a claim in what was then known as Beaver County, Oklahoma, once called "No Man's Land." My place was in sight of Buffalo Springs, and on the north line of the Panhandle.
A change in local conditions began in 1887. In that year a good many "nesters," small farmers began coming in and taking up the land. They were bitterly opposed by the big cow outfits, none of which wanted to see the country fenced, and felt that the settlers were intruding into a country where they did not belong and where they certainly were not wanted. I rather think that the cow outfits felt that they had won the country from the Indians and were entitled to it by right of conquest and occupancy. But the "nesters" forced the cow outfits to leave, just as the buffalo-hunters and the soldiers had made the Indians depart. Today the despised "nester" is the bone and sinew of the Panhandle country, and whatever social and material advancement the country had made should be credited mostly to those who built homes and school houses and churches, and tamed the wild land to the crops of civilization. I do not wish to say anything against the cow-men. They were big-hearted, generous fellows, who followed their own way as they saw it. Between the two classes there was much conflict; time, however, solves its problems, and solved them in the Panhandle.
Among the small stockmen who moved their families to the Panhandle in 1887 were the Lards, Ledricks and Walstads, all coming down from Kansas. The Lard and Ledrick families located on Chicken Creek. The Walstad family lived first on Wolf Creek, moving later to the "flats" in Ochiltree County. The Walstads were sturdy Norwegians and not afraid to work. To improve their place on the "flats", they cut cedar pickets in Government Canyon, ten miles away, and "snaked" them up the steep bluffs with a horse—the place was too rough for a team to descend. Nevertheless, they constructed a good-sized, comfortable dwelling out of these pickets, and covered it with dirt. Water was scarce on the "flats," the Walstads hauling it ten or fifteen miles the first year. Mr. Walstad undertook to dig a well by hand, something that no man before nor since has ever tried in that country. He was not financially able to bore a well, and did not know that it was anywhere from 300 to 400 feet to water. He got down about 200 feet and threw up the sponge—the sponge was dry.
The girls in the Walstad family were all splendid riders, as good as could be found in the Panhandle, and could rope a cow or a horse as easily as a man. They rode long distances after stock in all kinds of weather.
The Lards and Ledricks prospered on Chicken Creek. Henry Ledrick had been a post-trader in Kansas, and had lost all his property as the result of Indian raids. The Government afterwards compensated him for his losses. By intermarriage these families have established themselves in many of the Panhandle counties.
Dixon Orchard at Adobe Walls.
For years I was justice of the peace in Hutchinson County. The hardest job I ever tackled was to perform a marriage ceremony, though I married many couples. Ministers were as scarce as buffaloes, and when a couple decided to get "spliced" they went to the nearest justice of the peace or county judge. My usual embarrassment in marrying a couple was once increased beyond measure. I had grown to be very fond of a young lady who lived with Mrs. Willingham on the Turkey Track, but had never been able to muster courage to tell her how much I thought of her and to ask her to marry me. Well, a pesky cowboy did what I had not been able to do, and the two came to have me tie the conjugal knot. I thought that it was hard enough to lose the girl, but to be asked to marry her to another fellow was certainly tough.
Some of the large outfits controlled entire counties for range purposes—and the Panhandle counties were big counties. The Hansford Land & Cattle Company (the "Turkey Track" outfit) run 50,000 head of cattle at one time, and ranged over thousands of acres of land.
The Turkey Track outfit tried to escape the inevitable by buying out "nester" who came into the country in the late 80's, and in this way held all the land, save mine at Abode Walls. The Texas legislature opened up the land to purchase and settlement, and in the 90's the settlers began coming and could not be stopped. They settled first along the creeks and then spread to the uplands. I was State land commissioner for Hutchinson County and did a thriving business.