Two-Buckle Ranch Headquarters, Kentucky Cattle Raising Company

The company's first manager, Maj. Willa Viley Johnson, was a Kentucky distiller's partner who chose the Crosby County land and built the ranch. He fell out with Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, a stockholder, sold his stock and left in 1883 to found the MK Ranch. The range, fenced into two equal pastures, carried 13,500 cattle and 130 saddle horses. A slump in beef prices forced cuts after 1890, and in 1893 the company sold the whole herd. From 1898 the land was leased to the Carolitos Ranch of Chihuahua.

What the plaque says

Two-Buckle Ranch Headquarters, Kentucky Cattle Raising Company Headquarters for the Two Buckle Ranch was built near this site, at Silver Falls in 1884 by the Kentucky Cattle Raising Company, which had been founded two years earlier by a group of Louisville, Kentucky distillers. Claude Tilford was hired by the company to manage the 145, 240-acre ranch. A variety of grain and hay crops were grown. The ranch's cattle operation featured cross breeding and separation of breeding stock. In 1901 the C.B. Livestock Company bought 90,000 acres of the land and used the established headquarters for its -N- Ranching and plains land development operations. A dipping vat was built in 1912 and was used by all area cattlemen to combat Texas cattle fever. Since the 1915 breakup of the C.B. Livestock Company, succeeding owners have continued to add to and preserve the original headquarters site. A barn, garage, concrete storage tank, as well as a dam across White River were added during the 1920s. Over the years, this land has been home for a number of families who have contributed to Crosby County's ranching heritage. The Two Buckle Ranch Headquarters is a historic member of this early West Texas Industry. 1984

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 3.6 mi
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.
• Spur-Dickens County Museum — 23 mi
  Dickens County's museum on the main block of Spur, a town born on November 1, 1909, when the first train reached the land a New York syndicate was selling off from the Spur Ranch.
• Motley County Historical Museum — 31 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

• Old Dewey Lake — steps away
• Texas Ranger Campsite — steps away
• Main Supply Camp on Historic Mackenzie Trail — steps away
• Battle of the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos — steps away