DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the LX — the first ranch in Potter County. Now, before there was a Potter County, before there was much of anything out here on the Texas Panhandle worth naming, there was the LX. And it started, as so many Texas stories do, somewhere else entirely.
W. H. Bates and D.
T. Beals were Colorado merchants and ranchers, working the Arkansas River country since 1870. They had themselves a going operation — cattle, land, the whole picture.
But then came what the record calls, with magnificent understatement, "crowded conditions." Crowded conditions. So in 1877 — three years after Indians were expelled from this region — Bates and Beals picked up their herd and their brand and moved the whole enterprise down to the Panhandle of Texas. And they didn't come small.
The LX ranch stretched from what is now Dumas, thirty miles to the north, all the way down to present-day Amarillo, twenty miles to the south, and ran twenty miles wide. You do the rough math in your head and you're looking at a thousand square miles of open range. One thousand square miles.
That's not a ranch, friend — that's a kingdom with cattle in it. While the LX was taking root, buffalo were being exterminated across the area, and LX cattle were being driven to Dodge City for shipment to market, or pushed further on to ranges in Montana and Wyoming. The whole great machinery of the open range was turning, and the LX was right in the gears of it.
The cowboys who rode for the brand were something else. Among the famous ones the marker names: Allie Bates and John Ray — their names are on geological maps, which is a kind of immortality most people never think to want. And then there was Charles Siringo.
Author of Western Americana. Cattle rustler detective. The kind of man who earns two job titles that don't quite belong in the same sentence.
In 1884, Bates and Beals sold the whole operation to the American Pastoral Company, Limited, out of London, England. When ownership changed hands, the package included two hundred ten thousand, five hundred and ninety-seven acres of land, forty-five thousand cattle, and a thousand horses. London money, Texas dirt, and enough livestock to make your eyes water.
Now here's the part that lands differently the longer you sit with it. Potter County wasn't even organized yet when the LX was already running this corner of the world. When the county finally did get organized — August 30th, 1887, by fifty-three qualified electors — somebody had to pick a county seat.
And it was the thirty-eight LX cowboys who settled it. By unanimous vote, they elected Amarillo. Thirty-eight cowboys.
Unanimous. The city you just may have driven through to get here — its fate decided by working ranch hands casting ballots out on the open range. The Pastoral Company ran the land into the next century, but in 1906 they began liquidating.
The great LX broke apart piece by piece, and the heirs of the large purchasers are the ones who hold those properties now. A thousand square miles. Forty-five thousand cattle.
Thirty-eight cowboys who voted a city into existence. The LX didn't just work this land — for a good long while, it was this land.
What the marker says
Established by W. H. Bates and D. T. Beals, Colorado merchants and ranchers on the Arkansas River since 1870. "Crowded conditions" there resulted in moving herd and brand to the Panhandle of Texas in 1877 -- three years after Indians were expelled from this region. LX cattle were being driven to Dodge City for shipment to market or to ranges in Montana and Wyoming as the buffalo were being exterminated in the area. The ranch extended from present cities of Dumas (30 mi. N) to Amarillo (20 mi. S), and was 20 miles wide--1,000 square miles of open range. The ranch was sold in 1884 to the American Pastoral Company, Ltd., London. Ownership included 210,597 acres of land, 45,000 cattle and 1,000 horses. Famous LX cowboys included Allie Bates and John Ray, whose names are on geological maps, and Charles Siringo, author of Western Americana and cattle rustler detective. Potter County was organized on Aug. 30, 1887 by 53 qualified electors. By unanimous vote of the 38 LX cowboys, Amarillo was elected the county seat. In 1906 the Pastoral Company began liquidating. Heirs of large purchasers now own the properties. (1971)