Tom Lloyd Burnett

Burnett studied at a St. Louis academy and for three years at Virginia Military Institute, but cattle came first. At sixteen he went to tend his father's herds on the Big Pasture in Indian Territory, where he learned the Comanche language, and at twenty-one he became wagon boss. He served as a captain with the Rough Riders in 1898. He bred palominos, and in 1929 added the YL near Paducah to holdings that reached 449,415 acres. On Christmas Day 1938 he outfitted a group of needy boys at an Iowa Park clothing store, and he died the next day.

What the plaque says

The son of noted rancher Burk Burnett, for whom the nearby town of Burkburnett (18 miles northeast) was named, Tom L. Burnett (b. 1871) became one of the leading area cattlemen. Trained on his father's 6666 (four sixes) Ranch, Tom later owned the local Triangle Ranch, as well as range land in Cottle and Foard counties. A prominent civic leader and philanthropist, he was known for his friendliness to Indians, including the famous Chief Quanah Parker. His support of area rodeos earned him the nickname, the "Rodeo King". Tom Burnett died in his residence at this site in 1938. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kell House Museum — 11 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 11 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 21 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.

More markers nearby

• Site of Wichita Valley Refinery and Texas Oklahoma Fair — 0.2 mi
• Town of Iowa Park — 0.4 mi
• Site of Valley View School — 7.7 mi
• Van Dorn Trail — 7.8 mi