Julian M. Bassett

Before Crosbyton, Bassett spent two years with the McCormick harvester company in Chicago, then came back to work as a cowboy on the Three H Ranch. Delivering cattle to Chicago, he got the Coonley brothers to invest in a Crosby County sheep ranch, and the partnership grew into the C. B. Livestock Company in 1901. He married Cora Belle Drake in 1915 and moved to San Antonio in 1916, buying the Block Y Ranch and the townsite of Dryden in Terrell County. That promotion did less well; he later ran a store at Dryden.

What the plaque says

Julian M. Bassett (Dec. 4, 1873 - Dec. 29, 1947) New York native Julian Marcus Bassett migrated to Texas with his parents in 1882. A rancher and businessman, he helped establish the C. B. Livestock Company. In order to promote company land sales in the area, Bassett had the townsite of Crosbyton platted in 1907. He later organized construction of the Crosbyton South Plains Rail Line which helped the town become the county seat in 1911. This site was donated by Bassett for use as a public cemetery. Recorded - 1980.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 1.6 mi
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.
• Spur-Dickens County Museum — 24 mi
  Dickens County's museum on the main block of Spur, a town born on November 1, 1909, when the first train reached the land a New York syndicate was selling off from the Spur Ranch.
• Slaton Harvey House — 29 mi
  A 1912 Santa Fe Harvey House in the railroad town of Slaton, restored as a museum, event hall and five-room inn overlooking a working BNSF yard.
• Motley County Historical Museum — 33 mi
  Matador's museum in the 1928 Traweek Hospital, in the county seat a Scottish-owned ranch created by having its cowboys open one-day businesses to pass a state rule.

More markers nearby

• Lamar Family — steps away
• Crosbyton Cemetery — steps away
• Crosby County — 1.6 mi
• Crosbyton — 1.6 mi