Historical Marker
The Old JA Ranch
Randall County · Texas
Erected 1968
Goodnight and John G. Adair signed their partnership on June 18, 1877, before the Adairs left for Ireland. The five-year contract gave two-thirds of the property and profits to Adair and one-third to Goodnight, who borrowed his share from Adair at 10 percent interest and drew a $2,500 salary. At Goodnight's suggestion the ranch took Adair's initials. The first 12,000 acres came from Jot Gunter and William B. Munson, and in 1878 the first JA trail herd, led by the bell ox Old Blue, went north to Dodge City.
What the plaque says
The Old JA Ranch In 1876, veteran Texas cattleman, Charles Goodnight entered Palo Duro Canyon by way of an old Comanche Indian trail near here, to establish the first ranch in this area. In 1877, Goodnight in partnership with Englishman John Adair moved farther down the canyon to lay out headquarters of the JA Ranch. This pioneer venture became one of the greatest cattle operations in the world, taking in more than a million acres of land and grazing 101,023 head of cattle. Goodnight had became acquainted with the Palo Duro as a scout and guide for Texas Rangers during the Civil War. He knew that the canyon, fenced in by the overhanging caprock, was an ideal spot for a ranch: it furnished water and shelter in the winter and the adjacent plains provided ideal grazing in the summer. Upper division of this ranch (the park area) was reserved for the purebred, of JA herd. The vast lower end of the JA was ranged by longhorns - gradually being improved by better blood. In 1887 the Goodnight-Adair partnership was ended. Adair retained the JA which, in the hands of his heirs, is still one of the great ranches of Texas. (1968)
Where it stands
34.98441, -101.70132 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Palo Duro Canyon State Park — 0.6 miThe upper end of the canyon the state bought in 1933, where CCC crews built the road to the floor and the army burned the winter camps of the Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne in 1874.
- TEXAS Outdoor Musical — 2.3 miA summer pageant of Panhandle settler life staged since 1966 in the Pioneer Amphitheater, built into a basin of Palo Duro Canyon below a 600-foot cliff.
- Lighthouse Trail — 3.0 miThe park's most walked trail, 2.8 miles each way across the canyon floor to the Lighthouse, a hoodoo of Triassic sandstone balanced on a pedestal of softer red shale.
- Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 12 miThe Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.