Anchor D Ranch facts for kids
The Anchor D Ranch was once one of the largest cattle ranches in the Oklahoma Panhandle region. It was located near Guymon, Oklahoma, in what is now Texas County, Oklahoma. The ranch started around 1878 and became famous for raising a huge number of cattle.
Contents
The Story of Anchor D Ranch
How It All Began
The Anchor D Ranch was started around 1878 by Ezra Dudley and his son, John. Ezra Dudley was an investor from Massachusetts. They set up the ranch headquarters on the Beaver River.
Ezra Dudley bought his first group of cattle in south Texas. He then hired experienced cowboys to guide the cattle all the way to the new ranch. He kept adding more and more cattle. Eventually, the ranch was feeding about 30,000 cattle. It covered an estimated 960,000 acres, which is a massive area!
New Owners and Big Changes
After 1890, people wanted more land in the Panhandle for homesteads, which are small farms. This public pressure, along with money problems in 1893, made Ezra Dudley decide to sell his large ranch. He sold the Anchor D to T. C. Schumaker and moved back to Massachusetts.
The Schumaker Era
T. C. Schumaker continued to make the Anchor D Ranch even bigger. He bought several smaller ranches nearby. However, by the early 1900s, Schumaker also started having financial difficulties.
Stonebraker and Zea Take Over
In 1904, another investor named Howard M. Stonebraker bought the Anchor D Ranch and its cattle brand. Edwin Zea, a banker from Kansas City, joined Stonebraker as a business partner. Their partnership was renamed the Stonebraker and Zea Cattle Company. In 1911, the state of Oklahoma officially recognized their business as the Stonebraker and Zea Livestock Company. John H. Lucas was also listed as a third partner.
Facing Tough Times
The winters of 1917 and 1918 were extremely harsh. Many cattle died because of the cold weather. Stonebraker and Zea worked hard to make up for these losses. They decided to make their ranch operations smaller.
They divided a large part of the ranch land into smaller farms. They then sold these smaller farms through a company they owned called the Oklahoma and Texas Land and Loan Company. By 1937, the Anchor D Ranch was much smaller, covering about 63,000 acres. In 1939, Edwin Zea's widow sold the rest of the ranch land to R. S. Coon.
The Ranch Changes Hands Again
In 1970, the R. S. Coon Memorial Foundation sold the Anchor D land. Most of it was bought by Jack Freeman and Lewis Mayer. The Freeman Ranch added 28,200 acres from this sale. This made the Freeman Ranch one of the largest ranches in Oklahoma at that time.
