The Mule

The town takes its name from the Muleshoe Ranch, begun in 1903 when Edward K. Warren and his son Charles, owners of the Warren Featherbone Company of Three Oaks, Michigan, a corset maker, bought the 40,000-acre YL Ranch on former XIT land for $100,000. By 1910 their range covered 150,000 acres along Blackwater Draw. The source of the Muleshoe name is unclear; one story has Charles Warren finding an old rusty muleshoe. The town of Muleshoe began in 1913 at the ranch's loading pens on the Santa Fe line.

What the plaque says

The Mule Without ancestral pride or hope for offspring, the mule -- along with buffalo, hound and longhorn -- made Texas history. In war he carried cannon on his back. Because he was available to haul freight, forts rose on frontiers. Indians ate horses hitched to cart or coach, but let tough mule meat go by. His small hooves scaled rock and steep untrod by horse or ox, but big ears endangered him in lake or river. He went fast, endured much, ate sparingly. Since beginning of Christian era, has helped all over world to bear burdens of mankind. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge — 19 mi
  The oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas, a ring of salt lakes in the sandhills south of Muleshoe where tens of thousands of sandhill cranes winter in a wet year.

More markers nearby

• The Founding of Bailey County — 0.2 mi
• Bailey County — 0.2 mi
• Old Hurley — 2.6 mi
• The XIT Ranch South Line — 3.1 mi