The Old Blue Sign
By J. Mark McLaughlin, past president, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association Excerpted from Texas Farm & Ranch, p. 18, vol. 21, 2000
When traveling down most any highway in Texas and passing rural properties, you will see a blue sign with white lettering proudly displayed. Some of them look a little faded and old, some are personalized with the ranch name, but all of them proclaim that the resident is a member of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.
In fact, there are [more than 16,000] members of “Cattle Raisers,” as the organization is called, operating ranches in Texas and Oklahoma. Many of these members represent the fourth, and even fifth, generation of ranch people who have been members of this historic organization. The Association has been a vital part of the fabric of Texas for over [135] years and to fully appreciate its place you have to know some Texas history.
Texas’ livestock legacy
Cattle have always been a part of the economic activity of Texas. The earliest Spanish explorers brought cattle with them on their small ships, knowing that these animals and their offspring could continue to provide the meat and hides needed for settlement of these new colonies. As new outposts were established, these frontiersmen brought cattle with them and frequently cattle were the power to pull the carts and wagons to the new territories. Wealth was measured by the extent of the owner’s herds, and Texas had the ideal climate and native vegetation to make these herds prosper and increase.
As commerce became more sophisticated in the latter part of the 19th century, simply owning cattle was not enough. These cattle had to be converted into currency, and that meant finding cash markets for cows. Almost every family in Texas had cattle or access to unclaimed cattle and this was not the market needed. The Industrial Revolution was in high gear in the eastern half of the United States and this was the cash market needed for cattle owners.
The chief problem was transporting cattle to the processors who would pay cash for these animals. In the decades after the War Between the States this meant trailing cattle to the railheads in Kansas, and thus were born the historic and colorful trail drives so famous in the history of the West.
Herds were made up in all parts of Texas and, as they passed though the country, owners of smaller herds sold cattle to the drive and the herds increased. Sometimes cattle, without their owner’s knowledge or consent, voluntarily joined herds as they passed through. This created a big problem. As the ranges were not fenced, it was a difficult task to keep the trail herds separated from the local herds. These passing herds particularly troubled ranchers in north Texas, and something had to be done to avoid violent confrontations.
The cattlemen’s solution
On February 15, 1877, a group of cattlemen met in Graham, Texas, to seek a solution to the problem of missing, stolen and strayed cattle. This meeting was called by Col. Kit Carter of Palo Pinto County, C.C. Slaughter, owner of the huge Lazy S Ranch on the upper Brazos River, and J.C. Loving, son of Oliver Loving, for whom the famous Goodnight-Loving Trail was named.
These men and others bearing famous ranching family names such as Reynolds, Matthews, Waggoner and Burnett, organized what was called the Cattle Raisers Association of Northwest Texas. Kit Carter was selected to serve as president. The first order of business was to enact a dues system where every member declared the number of cattle under his control and voluntarily contributed dues based on that number. These funds were used to employ brand inspectors whose job it was to keep a record of the brands used by its members, to attend each roundup and to inspect each of the trail herds and to separate cattle that did not belong. That original organization survives to this day and is now called the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.
Cattle Raisers today
Cattle Raisers has its offices in Fort Worth and has 30 special rangers and 63 brand inspectors. The special rangers are licensed peace officers and hold commissions as Special Texas Rangers issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety or as Special Investigators in the state of Oklahoma. It is their duty to assist all other law enforcement officers in the detection and investigation of crimes, but chiefly in the areas of thefts of livestock and other ranch property, such as saddles, trailers and farm implements.
The brand inspector force attends every public livestock auction and records the brand and other identifying characteristics of every head of cattle sold through these auctions. If cattle are later reported as missing, the special rangers have immediate access to these sale records and can link identified cattle to the person who offered them for sale.
The story of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association would not be complete without the mention of the fellowship that its members enjoy. We have an annual meeting each spring in a major Texas city, and we have 2 other business meetings each year, in the summer and fall, as well as several outreach meetings and ranch gatherings, in parts of Texas and Oklahoma.
You haven’t enjoyed true fellowship and a wonderful good time until you have participated in these events. This is an opportunity for old and new friends, otherwise separated by hundreds of miles, to get together and discuss the really meaningful things in life, such as family, the weather, livestock, good horses and that wonderful country living. We would like to include you, and besides that, you need one of those blue signs on your front gate.
“The Old Blue Sign” is excerpted from the December 2013 issue of The Cattleman magazine.