John Chisum, frontier Cattle King

Editor’s Note: The Caprock Chronicles are edited each week by John T. “Jack” Becker, Librarian at Texas Tech University Libraries.  This week's article is by Bill O’Neal, who has served as State Historian of Texas.

His name was John Simpson Chisum, but as only a boy he was called "Cow John" because of his affinity for the cattle on his grandfather's Tennessee plantation. After becoming an open range rancher, Chisum was plagued by rustlers and developed a distinctive and recognizable earmark known as a "Jinglebob." Chisum soon was being called "Jinglebob John" and "Jinglebob Chisum." As his herds grew to vast numbers, he became known as the "Jinglebob King."

A genial and prominent man, Chisum was affectionately called "Uncle John," as well as "Old Chisum" - although probably not to his face. With his great New Mexico ranch stretching 200 miles along the Pecos River and his cattle holdings numbering 60,000 to 80,000 head, Chisum became known as the "Cattle King of the Pecos," the "Stock King of New Mexico," the "Cattle King of the West," and most regal of all, the "Cattle King of America."

This future cattle king was born August 16, 1824, in Hardeman County in western Tennessee to Claiborne and Lucinda Chisum. During the first year of the Texas Republic in 1837, Claiborne Chisum joined a parade of fellow Tennesseans migrating to the Lone Star Republic. Indeed, famed Tennessean Sam Houston, hero of the Battle of San Jacinto, was serving as president of the Texas Republic. John Chisum was thirteen when his family trekked to Texas, and he never forgot the adventure of moving to a new frontier.

Claiborne Chisum settled his family in what soon became Lamar County in northeast Texas. John worked on his father's farm, served as a laborer when the county's first brick courthouse was erected, and clerked in several stores. He won election as county clerk when he was twenty-eight, but quickly became disenchanted with politics. During these years John Chisum began buying steers and selling them to butchers in Paris and other new communities in the area.

This business was profitable, and as Chisum began to see possibilities in an occupation that was congenial to his nature, he met Stephen K. Fowler from New Orleans in 1854. Fowler had money to invest in the fledgling range cattle industry, and he partnered with Chisum who had learned where he could purchase animals cheaply and where he could graze them. Once he purchased 1,000 head of cattle for $2,000 - and the herd was delivered to his ranch.

His first ranch was in Denton County. Chisum reasoned that the most profitable approach to frontier ranching was grazing on open range. There would be no financial expenditures for land, except for a small plot for ranch headquarters. Cattle were cheap, grazing was free, and drovers were paid only about $30 a month. Reproduction on the range would provide herd increase at no expense. If attractive markets were found, the profits could be immense.

Chisum ranched in Denton County for a decade. During the Civil War he supplied beef to Confederate troops, driving herds to Little Rock, Vicksburg, and Shreveport. But by 1864, farmers hungry for the fertile land of Denton County, as well as the growing presence of Confederate deserters, prompted Chisum to move his operation southwest, to the empty rangelands of Coleman and Concho counties. Within a few years he moved again, following Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving to New Mexico.

Loving was slain by a war party in 1867, and Goodnight partnered with Chisum for three years.

"He was a great trail man," observed Goodnight. "No one had any advantage of him as an old-fashioned cowman, and he was the best counter I ever knew. He could count three grades of cattle at once and count them accurately even if they were going at a trot."

Chisum often was on the range with his men, astride a big roan called Old Steady and carrying binoculars. He also carried a revolver, wrapping the gunbelt and holster around his saddle horn. Chisum often brought his fiddle, playing for impromptu cowboy dances around the campfire, and sometimes he delighted a crew by breaking out a keg of whisky. He also presided over the extralegal execution of rustlers, and his men labeled him "Judge Lynch."

Chisum built a showplace headquarters complex just south of Roswell, and it was christened with a Christmas dance in 1880. The cattle king enjoyed touring visitors around his splendid ranch home. But in 1884 he was stricken with a large throat tumor, and died at age 60 on Dec. 22, 1884. A lifelong bachelor, he was buried beside his parents in Paris, Texas. Arguably the most successful open range rancher of the American frontier, Chisum passed away just as open range ranching was disappearing from a changing West.

Bill O’Neal has served as Texas State Historian and the author of over 40 books and hundreds of articles on the history of the old West.