McNeill Ranch

The SR brand was already old when it reached Crosby County. Samuel Rowe registered it in Brazoria County in 1857, and James Calvin McNeill bought it in 1867 along with Rowe's cattle. After his 1882 purchase, the Kentucky Cattle Raising Company bought the alternate sections, and the two outfits agreed by word of mouth to share the land. By 1888 that bargain had soured, and the larger owner hemmed McNeill's herds onto a restricted range, which some saw as an attempt to starve him out. The Kentucky company began liquidating in 1893. The ranch is private land.

What the plaque says

McNeill Ranch In 1882 James Calvin McNeill (b. 1844), Brazoria County rancher, purchased 8,000 acres in Crosby County to expand his cattle business. Maintaining two distant ranches became difficult, so in 1890 George M. Williamson, his cousin, came to assist in the management of this property, later expanded to 18,240 acres. In 1902 James Calvin McNeill, Jr. (1875-1949) took over operation of the ranch. The elder McNeill divided his property among his children in 1930. For one hundred years the McNeill ranch has played a significant role in the ranching history of this area. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 11 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 — 15 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.

More markers nearby

• Cole-McNeill-Jones House — 2.6 mi
• Site of Leatherwood School — 5.1 mi
• Near Site of Pansy Baptist Church — 5.1 mi
• Marshall Clinton Formby, Jr. — 6.0 mi