The XIT Ranch South Line

Before the ranch had a fence, Col. Amos C. Babcock of the Capitol Syndicate went to look at the land. He reached Mobeetie in March 1882 and, with a letter from Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, got a four-mule ambulance and a wagon from Fort Elliott. With surveyor William S. Mabry, Oldham County clerk C. R. Vivian, cowboys and a cook, he spent thirty-six days and more than 950 miles going from Buffalo Springs to Yellowhouse Creek. The party found an error in the 1859 line that saved Texas a strip 310 miles long.

What the plaque says

The XIT Ranch South Line (About 100 feet south of this marker) One of most famous boundaries in Texas. Marked edge of XIT -- ranch empire bartered away by Texas for its Capitol building. The 16th Legislature in 1879 designated a 3,000,000-acre tract to be used in payment for the Capitol. The grant extended 200 miles north from line here. Besides portion in this county, it included lands in counties of Castro, Cochran, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Hartley, Hockley, Lamb, Oldham, and Parmer. Heading the investors who built the Capitol were wealthy Chicago merchants, John V. and C. B. Farwell. Their surveying was begun in 1886. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge — 16 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

• Bailey County — 3.0 mi
• The Founding of Bailey County — 3.0 mi
• The Mule — 3.1 mi
• Old Hurley — 5.7 mi