The Deadliest Enemy

How stalwart cattle ranchers in the Lone Star State survived the Big Dry Up.

- Preston Lewis

To the uninitiated in the Old West, the ranching business centered on cattle, but in reality, the livestock trade focused on grass and water, so much so that droughts always threatened the success of the Cattle Kingdom.

Without regular rainfall, grass withered away, cattle fell to hunger or thirst and ranchers faced a domino effect of ever increasing consequences that were measured in years rather than months. Ironically, the Cattle Kingdom that evolved after the Civil War overlapped the semi-arid reaches of the Great Plains, a region located between the Rocky Mountains and the 98th Meridian near Fort Worth, Texas, and a region where tenuous rain made for uncertain ranching.

From Fort Worth west to the Rockies, annual rainfall averaged less than 20 inches, a yearly accumulation that kept the cattle business on edge. The ranches in West Texas, the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, southwestern Kansas and southeastern evaporation rates ranging from 52 to 60 inches during the critical months of April through September. By comparison, evaporation rates farther north in Dakota Territory ranged from 30 to 38 inches during the same months.

Because of the lower evaporation rate, northern ranches had a higher effective yield on rainfall during the hot months than Texas ranches that included the XIT, the Matador, the Spade and the Spur. As South Plains historian William Curry Holden put it, “From the earliest days of its settlement West Texas has had a reputation for frequent dry spells, and, at longer intervals, severe droughts.”