Sanborn Ranch

Henry Sanborn came to Texas to sell barbed wire, then put some of his profits into land here. The Handbook says he bought a 2,000-acre horse and cattle ranch twelve miles west of Sherman, where he bred a cow pony by crossing thoroughbreds with Spanish mustangs. Each fall he showed his best racehorses and harness stallions at a Dallas horse show, and he later gave the fairground plot to Dallas; it became the site of the Cotton Bowl and the State Fair of Texas. He sold the ranch in 1892.

What the plaque says

Sanborn Ranch Established in late 1870's by H. B. Sanborn, one of the major promoters of barbed wire. Ranch (a showplace) was first large area in Texas to be fenced with barbed wire -- a model demonstration project, contributing to decline of open-range west. In 1888, Sanborn founded city of Amarillo and thereafter sold ranch. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 8.3 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Eisenhower State Park — 18 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Great Hanging Memorial — 18 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 18 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.

More markers nearby

• Sadler United Methodist Church — 3.5 mi
• Diamond Horse Ranch — 6.1 mi
• Hiram Lodge No. 433, A. F. & A. M. — 7.2 mi
• First Site of City of Sherman — 7.8 mi