Milton Faver

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Milton Faver, born around 1829, gone by December of 1889, and if you're drivin' through Presidio County right now, you are rolling through the country this man carved out of what most folks would've called the impossible. They called him Don Meliton out here, and before it was all said and done, they called him the first cattle baron west of the Pecos.

Now that's a title you don't inherit. You earn it. The hard way.

Faver started out running a freighting business on the Chihuahua Trail; not exactly a gentle line of work; and somewhere along that trail he saw something in this country that other men looked straight at and kept riding. Around 1855 he moved his family to Presidio del Norte and opened a general store. Sensible enough.

But Faver was already thinking bigger. He accumulated a large herd of cattle over in Mexico, and then in 1857 he loaded up his family and his vaqueros and moved the whole operation north into the mountain country. Made his headquarters right on Cibolo Creek.

Now, in country where water is the difference between life and dust, Faver picked his ground well; because springs flowed abundantly on all three of his ranches. Three of them. Cibolo Creek was headquarters, and he established two others nearby, La Cienega and La Morita.

Springs on every one. He didn't stop at runnin' cattle, either. In the fertile fields surrounding those ranches, Faver devised and installed his own irrigation systems; supplying water for vegetables, grain, and large peach orchards.

Peach orchards. Out here, west of the Pecos, in the shadow of the Big Bend. His headquarters, El Fortin del Cibolo, served as a supply station for the U.S.

Army quartermaster division at Fort Davis. Troops used the ranch as a point of departure for forays into Indian occupied regions to the west and north. So this wasn't just a ranch; it was a lifeline, a waypoint, a fort in everything but name.

And through all of it, Milton Faver was celebrated for his hospitality. A gentleman of means who lived in style, they said. He died in December 1889 and was buried right there on his ranch at Cibolo; the land he'd chosen, the land he'd watered, the land he'd turned into something that outlasted him.

Some men pass through a place and leave nothing. Don Meliton left orchards.

What the marker says

(ca. 1829 - December 1889) The earliest large-scale cattleman to settle in the Big Bend, Milton (Don Meliton) Faver prospered against seemingly impossible odds to become the first cattle baron west of the Pecos. While operating a freighting business on the Chihuahua Trail, he moved his family to Presidio del Norte and opened a general store about 1855 . After accumulating a large herd of cattle in Mexico he moved his family and vaqueros to the mountain country north of Presidio and made his headquarters on Cibolo Creek in 1857. He established two other ranches at nearby La Cienega and La Morita. Springs flowed abundantly on all three ranches, providing water for livestock and agriculture. In the fertile fields surrounding the ranches, Faver devised and installed irrigation systems that supplied water for vegetables, grain, and large peach orchards. El Fortin del Cibolo, ranch headquarters, served as a supply station for the U. S. Army quartermaster division at Ft. Davis. Troops used the ranch as a point of departure for forays into Indian occupied regions to the west and north. Celebrated for his hospitality, Faver was known as a gentleman of means who lived in style. He died in December 1889 and was buried on his ranch at Cibolo. (1992)