Old Dobie Ranch, Birthplace of J. Frank Dobie

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, right where the story starts. Somewhere out in Live Oak County, there's a piece of ground that didn't know what it was nurturing. This is the Old Dobie Ranch, the birthplace of J.

Frank Dobie, and if you've spent any time in the brush country, you already feel the weight of that name. Dobie came into the world on September 26, 1888, and he left it on September 18, 1964. In between those two dates, he did something that most people only talk about doing.

He actually went out and gathered up the stories that were fading at the edges, the tales that lived in the dust and the mesquite and the memory of people who didn't write things down. He collected them, shaped them, and sent them out into the world in more than thirty volumes of folk tales and legends. Now, that right there is a life's work.

Thirty volumes. Think about that the next time you feel like you've been busy. The marker calls him a strong individualist, and you get the sense that's not a polite way of saying difficult.

It means he went his own direction, followed his own compass, and came back with something the rest of us needed. He added, they say, a new dimension to the literature of the Southwest. Not a footnote.

A whole new dimension. But here's what lands hardest. His works, the marker says, best preserve the heritage of the people of the brush country.

The rancher. The miner. The cowboy.

The folks whose stories don't usually get a roof over them. Dobie built that roof, right here, from a ranch in Live Oak County. That's the kind of birthplace worth stoppin' for.

What the marker says

(Sept. 26, 1888-Sept. 18, 1964) A strong individualist and noted folklorist who added a new dimension to literature of Southwest. Collected and published more than 30 volumes of folk tales and legends. His works best preserve the heritage of people of the brush country--the rancher, the miner and the cowboy. (1970)