Drift Fence

The wire had an owner. The Panhandle Stock Association met in March 1880 at Mark Huselby's hotel in Mobeetie and organized against rustlers and Texas fever and posted a $250 reward for anyone stealing a member's cattle. In 1881 it sent John W. Poe to join Pat Garrett in tracking Billy the Kid, whose gang had been taking Panhandle cattle. Any settler, large or small, could join. The association built the drift fence in 1882, lost Charles Goodnight to another group in 1886, and was gone by 1889.

What the plaque says

Drift Fence Famed cattleman Charles Goodnight established one of the first ranches in the Texas Panhandle, the J A Ranch, in 1876. Later that year, Thomas S. Bugbee established the first cattle ranch in Hutchinson County. As a result of soaring beef prices cattle ranching proliferated in this region of the U.S. in the 1880s. The Texas Panhandle, with its open range and expansive grasslands, became the preferred winter grazing site for cattle migrating south from Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. This seasonal influx of cattle disrupted the practice of area ranchers who went to great lengths to respect adjacent ranch boundaries. Members of the Panhandle Stock Association pooled their resources and in 1882-85 erected barbed wire barriers along a 200-mile stretch of the Panhandle including Hutchinson County to prevent cattle from drifting south into the fertile Canadian River Valley. The "drift fence" worked too well in the winters of 1886 and 1887 when thousands of cattle moving south ahead of strong storms stalled at the fence line and froze or were trampled to death. The staggering losses prompted federal and state legislation which limited fencing on public lands and the "drift fence" was removed or incorporated into private ranch fencing. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hutchinson County Museum — 19 mi
  Borger's museum on the three-mile Main Street of a 1926 oil boom town that drew 45,000 people in ninety days and was put under martial law in 1929.
• Lake Meredith National Recreation Area — 24 mi
  A Canadian River reservoir in 200-foot breaks, built to water the Panhandle's cities, that fell to a record 26 feet deep in 2013 and still rises and falls with the drought.

More markers nearby

• First Battle of Adobe Walls — 4.9 mi
• Drift Fence — 11 mi
• Holt Cemetery — 11 mi
• Gulf Dial #1 Oil Well — 11 mi