The Transformation of the XIT Ranch

THE EARLY and middle nineties saw the last of the great trail herds of Texas following the long road to northern pastures and northern markets. Texas fever, increasing number of nesters along the trails, barbed wire fences, and the expansion of railroads had brought to an end one of the most picturesque periods of history of the old Southwest, and were ushering in a period of development which will not reach its full height for many years to come. While the old order was passing there existed in the Panhandle of Texas, one of the largest ranches in the world; one whose organization was to exert an immense influence upon the development of Northwest Texas. This was the XIT Ranch, composed of a vast body of land. 3,000,000 acres of which the State of Texas traded for its huge granite capitol building, and 500,000 acres which the capitol Syndicate purchased.

Many people have been under the impression that the Capitol Syndicate was an English concern, but it was not. It was chartered in England, however, because the Farwelis of Chicago, who owned it, went to England and there obtained the loan which enabled them to finish the capitol building and to develop the vast territory which composed their holdings in the Panhandle. 

The ranch, like hundreds of others, was commonly known by the name of the brand it used; it was said that the brand, XIT stood for Ten (Counties) in Texas. It is not strange that the brand became so well known, for cattle with XIT burned on them covered a ranch 575 miles around; a ranch which had as its northwest corner the northwest corner of the Stake, and extended south 185 miles to a point in Hockley County; the east line of the ranch was 175 miles long, and the north line 80 miles long. 

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