Philmont by Lawrence R. Murphy

Author:Lawrence R. Murphy [Murphy, Lawrence R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX)
ISBN: 9780826323453
Google: F6CHAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNM Press
Published: 2013-11-30T03:38:47+00:00

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COWBOYS AND CATTLEMEN

Even before squabbles over ownership of the Maxwell Land Grant ended, the grassy plains and high mountain meadows which would someday become Philmont supported an important livestock industry. Hundreds of thousands of cattle fattened on the rich grass of a dozen or more major ranches. Cowboys by the hundred rounded up stock each year for branding, cared for them during droughts and blizzards, and mended the many miles of fence. Several of the larger operators became wealthy. “The profits of stock raising in this western country are so great,” a visiting journalist wrote from Cimarron in 1881, “that should I tell the exact truth, it might be taken as an exaggeration.” Fifteen years later a Santa Fe newspaper labeled Colfax County as “the banner grazing country in the big Southwest.”1 Many early ranches still survive, some of them raising cattle much as they did almost a century ago.

Despite individual differences, most Colfax County ranches had certain similarities. Each cattleman, for example, wanted some of his property to be located along the edge of the Sangre de Cristos where stock could be grazed during the cold winter months. Here, too, usually beside a stream, were the headquarter buildings, often surrounded by orchards and gardens. It was also desirable to own mountain land, for the lush, green meadows and valleys of the back country provided the best summer pasture. Once each spring and again in the fall, drives were held to move the cattle from one area to the other. Scattered throughout each ranch were camps where cowboys lived while watching the herds. Today many of these, especially in the high mountains, are the sites of Philmont camps.

Ranchers also shared certain common enemies, among the worst of which were the wolves which frequently attacked their herds. As early as the 1850s soldiers from Post Rayado pursued packs of 200 or more. Forty years later they were still such a threat that cattlemen organized hunts to scour the foothills around Philmont.2

Weather conditions were as potentially dangerous to a herd of cattle as wolves. Sometimes, as in 1880, light winter snows combined with poor spring rains to retard the growth of grass in the mountains. Ranchers who had nothing in reserve to feed their stock faced the alternatives of selling off at a loss or watching their animals starve. At other times, winter blizzards isolated cattle and kept them from reaching food. When several feet of snow covered the Moreno Valley and the area along the edge of the mountains in 1891, for example, ranchers reported “famished animals standing, huddled together, hemmed in by mountains of snow.” Unless warm weather came soon, hundreds would die. During most years, however, conditions were good. “The grass on the range is in excellent condition,” a Santa Fe reporter wrote from Colfax County in 1896; the cattle looked “round and sleek.”3

Even ideal weather conditions failed to lessen the threat that range criminals frequently posed to pioneer cattlemen. Unfenced pastures made rustling especially common. News in 1882 that “cattle thieves are operating in Colfax County” probably surprised no one.

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