DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll do my best to tell it right. Now, if you're going to talk about the Texas frontier, you need to talk about buffalo. And if you're going to talk about buffalo, sooner or later you're going to talk about J.
Wright Mooar. Mooar was born in Vermont — about as far from the Texas Panhandle as a man can get without falling into the Atlantic Ocean. But something in him must have felt the pull of open country, because at age nineteen he headed west.
By 1870 he was hunting buffalo, supplying hides for market, and somewhere in those endless grasslands he found his calling. He wasn't working alone. His brother, John W.
Mooar, was in it with him, and together the two of them did something that would echo across the history of the southern plains — in 1873, the Mooar Brothers established the first buffalo hunting camp in the Texas Panhandle. First one. Nobody had set up shop out there before them.
Now, Mooar hunted regularly through 1879, and during that career he shot approximately twenty-two thousand buffalo. That is a number worth sitting with for a moment. Twenty-two thousand.
A record, the marker says, probably unsurpassed. And the way he did it — the precision of it — earned him a reputation that crossed cultural lines most men of his era never crossed. His ability to hit a vital spot from a distance of a thousand feet or farther won the respect of Comanche Indian Chief Quanah Parker, who became a friend to Mooar in later life.
A thousand feet. That's not shooting. That's a conversation the buffalo never heard coming.
But here's the moment that sets J. Wright Mooar apart from every other man who ever leveled a rifle at a buffalo herd. October 7th, 1876.
He's out at his first camp in Scurry County — two point eight miles south of the marker you may be standing near right now, on county road 253, close to the Old Mooar Ranch headquarters. He spots something in the herd that stops him cold. A white buffalo.
An albino. One of only two ever known to have been killed in the state of Texas. Mooar pulled the trigger.
That hide — that singular, ghostly hide — was shown at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, and on many other occasions after that. A creature so rare it became an exhibit.
A reminder, preserved in leather and memory, of one morning in Scurry County. The brothers didn't just hunt. In 1877 they began ranching.
In 1881, while Mooar was also out helping furnish game and hay to construction crews building the Texas and Pacific Railroad in West Texas, he and John were putting down civilian roots too — the brothers owned a livery stable in Colorado City from 1881 all the way to 1905. Highly esteemed by their fellow citizens, the marker says. Men of the frontier who stayed, and built, and were known.
Scurry County claims J. Wright Mooar as its own. A Vermont boy who came west at nineteen, hunted twenty-two thousand buffalo, shot one white as snow on an October morning, and made a friend of Quanah Parker.
That's not a resume. That's a life.
What the marker says
J. Wright Mooar was a champion hunter of buffalo, largest game animal in North America. A native of Vermont. He came west at age 19 and in 1870 began hunting to supply hides for market. In partnership with his brother, John W. Mooar, he established the first buffalo hunting camp in the Texas Panhandle in 1873. On October 7, 1876, at his first camp in Scurry County (2.8 miles south of this site on county road 253, near the Old Mooar Ranch headquarters) J. Wright Mooar killed a rare albino buffalo, one of two known to have been killed in Texas. The albino hide was shown at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and on many other occasions. Mooar hunted regularly until 1879. In 1881 he helped furnish game and hay to construction crews building the Texas & Pacific Railroad in West Texas. During his career, he shot about 22,000 buffalo, a record probably unsurpassed. His ability to hit a vital spot from a distance of 1,000 feet or farther won the respect of Comanche Indian Chief Quanah Parker, who became a friend in later life. The Mooar Brothers began ranching in 1877. Highly esteemed by their fellow citizens, they owned a livery stable in Colorado City from 1881 to 1905. (1967--1995)