Site of Original Headquarters of the Quitaque Ranch

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Floyd County, there's a spot that carries the weight of some serious Texas land history. It starts in 1877, when the Baker brothers established what would become the original headquarters of the Quitaque Ranch.

Now, the Baker brothers got things going, but this story was just warming up. In 1880, a man named Charles Goodnight came riding into the picture, and he bought the ranch for a woman named Mrs. Cornelia Adair.

Charles Goodnight. If that name rings a bell out here on the High Plains, it should. And Mrs.

Cornelia Adair. Remember both those names. Because by 1887, Goodnight had joined the Quitaque holdings together with the Palo Duro ranches, and what they embraced, when you put it all together, was more than one million acres.

One million acres. Let that settle over you like a West Texas sky. More land than most folks could ride across in a week of hard days.

Now, empires have a way of not lasting forever, and this one was no different. That vast stretch, all those acres the Baker brothers had started and Goodnight had stitched into something enormous, was later broken into smaller tracts. The land stayed.

The scale did not. And somewhere out in Floyd County, the marker stands where the headquarters once was, reminding anyone who stops that a million acres used to answer to one name.

What the marker says

Established by the Baker brothers in 1877; bought in 1880 for Mrs. Cornelia Adair by Charles Goodnight. Together with the Palo Duro ranches it embraced more than one million acres acquired by Goodnight in 1887, later broken into smaller tracts.