Southern-Trails-L Archives

Archiver > Southern-Trails > 2002-07 > 1025796907


From: "Coffee" <>
Subject: [SouthernTrails] Fenced cattle range.
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 10:35:07 -0500


After R.K. Wylie sold his property in Runnels County and abandoned his open
cattle range in Coleman County, the State of Texas acquired the Wylie,
Coffey and Chisum open range land. It was awarded to Brazoria and Fort
Bend Counties as school-land.

William H. Day (1833-1881) , trail driver and livestock entrepreneur, son of
Jesse and Sarah (Logan) Day had open range land in Hays County and in 1860,
he and his brother attempted to drive a herd up the Shawnee Trail through
Dallas to Kansas City but were turned back by angry landowners with fenced
property. In 1862 he drove herds to Louisiana markets. In 1869 he drove a
herd to Kansas up the newly opened Texas Trail that connected the Shawnee
Trail at Hillsboro, Texas, through Fort Worth then connected to the
Chisholm Trail at the Red River near the present town of Nocona, Texas. The
Chisholm Trail started at the Red River near present day Nocona, Texas,
through Oklahoma to Fort Leavenworth Kansas.

Day realized that the future of the cattle business depended on land
ownership and fence cattle ranges. In 1876, Day secured 85,000 acres of
Brazoris and Fort Bend County school land that was the former open range of
R.K. Wylie, Rich Coffey and J.S.Chisum in southern Coleman County. He fenced
40,000 acres ofthe land and two years later he made several cattle drives
to Dodge City, Kansas. In 1879, he married Mable Doss of Denison, Texas.
William Day died in June, 1881 from injuries he suffered in a cattle
stampede and left his widow and infant child deeply in debt and burdened
with a massive ranch operation. Mable Doss Day turned misfortune into
success, however, and during the 1880s she became known as "The Cattle Queen
of Texas" for her skillful management.

Mable Doss Day fenced 78,000 acres of her land in Coleman County. By 1883,
the Day Cattle Ranch was the largest fenced ranch in Texas. Then the fence
wars in Coleman and Brown County broke out. With the absence of any laws
governing building or cutting fences, free-grass cattlemen and cattle
drovers that used the Western Trail who were long accustomed to an open
range, responded to the summer drought by cutting fences of ranchers who had
bought and fenced their land. On April 28, 1889, Mable Doss Day married
Capt. J.C. Lea of Roswell, New Mexico. She moved to new Mexico and sold her
cattle range and settled 500 people in Coleman County. Mable Doss Day Lea
died in 1906 after an operation. She set aside 10,000 acres of debt-free
land for her duaghter.

The small community of Leaday, Texas near the Colorado River in Coleman
County was first founded by Rich Coffey with a saloon, store and post office
in 1861. Formerly known as Trigger and later Flat Top, Texas was washed
away in a flood.The community of Leaday developed in the same location after
the sale of the Day Cattle Company ranch land to settlers. The population
of Leaday,Texas was fifty-five in 1990.

Bibliography: Leona Bruce, "They Came in Peace to Coleman County" (Fort
Worth: Branch-Smith, 1970) ; Sinclair Moreland, "The Texas Women's Hall of
Fame" (Austin: Biographical Press, 1917) James T. Padgitt, "Mrs. Mabel Day
and the Fence Cutters", West Texas Historical Association Yearbook (1950)

Jerry Coffee
Plano,Texas

This thread: