Site of Original Headquarters of the Quitaque Ranch

The Baker brothers, George and Jim, came from San Saba County, and before 1878 the only resident of the Quitaque country was a buffalo hunter, Jake Fields. Their foreman, O. J. Wiren, brought in the second herd mixed with cattle of his own Square-Topped Hat brand and soon became a partner. In 1880 Wiren and two Wisconsin lumbermen, Kellogg and McCoy, bought out the Bakers and added the Dipper brand. Cowboys Al and Jim Cook reportedly went to great lengths to keep New Mexican sheepmen off a range that reached 140,000 acres by 1882.

What the plaque says

Site of Original Headquarters of the Quitaque Ranch Established by the Baker brothers in 1877; bought in 1880 for Mrs. Cornelia Adair by Charles Goodnight. Together with the Palo Duro ranches it embraced more than one million acres acquired by Goodnight in 1887, later broken into smaller tracts.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway — 9.3 mi
  Red canyons below the Caprock escarpment where the Texas State Bison Herd, descended from calves Mary Ann Goodnight saved in 1878, has right of way on the park roads.
• Bob Wills Museum — 14 mi
  The old Turkey school, now holding Bob Wills's boots, hats, his father's fiddle and his barbershop tools, in the cotton town that fills each April for Bob Wills Day.
• Motley County Historical Museum — 24 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

• Camp Resolution of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition — 2.5 mi
• Gasoline Cotton Gin — 6.4 mi
• Lake Theo Folsom Bison Kill Site — 9.4 mi
• William E. Schott — 13 mi