Spade Ranch (Nebraska) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Spade Ranch
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Aerial view of Spade Ranch in 2009
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 Location in Nebraska
Location in the United States
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| Location | Sheridan / Cherry counties, Nebraska, USA |
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| Nearest city | Ellsworth, Nebraska |
| Built | 1888 |
| NRHP reference No. | 80002464 |
| Added to NRHP | February 28, 1980 |
The Spade Ranch is a large cattle ranch located in the Sandhills of western Nebraska between the towns of Gordon and Ellsworth. Founded in 1888 by Bartlett Richards, the ranch was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
A beef ranching operation in the Nebraska Sandhills, the Spade Ranch, encompasses land in both Sheridan and Cherry Counties. Founders Bartlett Richards and William Comstock successfully managed the ranch into the early twentieth century. At its peak size in 1905 with open range grazing and ready markets for cattle, the Spade, encompassed over 500,000 acres (200,000 ha) with a herd of 60,000 cattle. Under the direction of the Bixby family, associates of Richards and Comstock since 1908 and owners of the ranch since 1923, the Spade Ranch has continued to produce quality beef cattle as part of Nebraska's large beef industry. That the ranges remain cattle country today attests to the vision of early Nebraska Sandhills ranchers.
The Spade Ranch is named for the cattle brand that founders Bartlett Richards and William Comstock used to mark their cattle. The brand resembles an Ace of Spades on playing cards. The Spade brand is still in use as the ranch brand today.
Contents
History
Foundation and growth
Nebraska's early beef cattle industry first developed between the Platte Rivers and along the valleys of the Republican River and South Loup River. H.L. Newman a wealthy St. Louis banker and stock-raiser and brother E.S. Newman established headquarters in 1878 at the mouth of the Antelope Creek, 12 miles (19 km) south-east of the present town of Gordon, Nebraska and range along the Niobrara River covered an area of 30 by 65 miles (105 km) with 15,000 head of cattle. John Bratt, the Keystone Cattle Company, and the Bosler Brothers had penetrated along the south rim of the Sandhills, but it wasn't until the spring of 1879 that the economic importance of the Sandhills were discovered. That year storm-driven cattle from the Newman Ranch disappeared South into the Sandhills area previously avoided by cattlemen. An expedition was organized, with ranch foreman Billy Irwin in charge, to venture into the Sandhills and round-up the scattered cattle. During the roundup of those cattle other wild cattle were found, the wild cattle had grown fat even though untended during several winters. On the fourth week out and running low on provisions, the Newman cowboys camped along a lake where all they had to eat was bean soup. They called the lake Bean Soup Lake, four miles (6 km) east of what would later become the headquarters of the Spade Ranch. One of the Newman cowboys on the 1879 round-up, was later Omaha mayor James Dahlman.
Word of the Newman Ranch's successful roundup of 1879 spread and rangeland along the Niobrara filled as fast as cattlemen could move in stock and erect shacks and corrals, but no ranch headquarters had as yet located within the Sandhills themselves. Bennett Irwin, one of the cattlemen on the 1879 roundup into the Sandhills, had as early as 1884 began to file on land in a large valley to the west of Bean Soup Lake called the Home Valley. The Home Valley is at the beginning of a series of large valleys capable of producing many thousands of tons of hay, making it an ideal location for settlement and development of a ranch.
On August 10, 1888, Bartlett Richards bought Bennett Irwin's filing near Bean Soup Lake in Sheridan County. The Log House from the Newman Ranch was disassembled and moved to its new location in the Home Valley, making it the first building erected at the newly formed Spade Ranch. During the 1890s, Richards developed his almost 800 square miles (2,100 km2) in Sheridan and Cherry Counties into manageable units. Ranching activities occurred year round. Following the breeding schedule, spring was calving and round up. Summer activities included harvesting hay to use for cattle feed in the fall and winter. Additional laborers were often hired to help with this task. During the fall fireguards were plowed to prevent fires from spreading, as the pastures had dried by the summer and cattle were shipped by railroad to markets in Omaha and Chicago. Year round activities included providing beef for the Indian agencies and building fences. Initially, fences created corrals at the ranch headquarters. By the early 1890s, fencing of grazing areas increased. The number of widespread roundups in the area may have increased the desire to fence in areas.
The Spade Ranch was one of the larger operations near the Pine Ridge Agency and supplied beef to the Dakota reservation. The Chadron Advocate reported in 1891," Bartlett Richards has received the beef contract at Pine Ridge Agency for the ensuing year. The amount is 6,000,000 pounds. This will require 6,000 head of cattle." The Spade continued a contract with the Pine Ridge Agency until 1896. Even though the agency provided good business, most of the steady business came from shipping cattle to packers or feeders in the corn belt.
In December 1895, the Richard and Cairnes partnership was formed with assets totaling $475,000.00 ( $12,087,227.00 current). Richards and Cairnes, Inc., included Richards as president, John Cairnes of Boston as vice president, and Jarvis Richards, secretary and treasurer. John Cairnes only attended one board meeting and in 1899 sold his stock to Richards and resigned. William Comstock took Cairnes' place on the board, and they remained partners until Richards' death in 1911.
As early as the 1880s, Richards established the Spade Ranch's cattle shipping point in Ellsworth, southwest of the Spade Ranch. In 1898, Richards and Cairnes, Inc., built a store, hotel, and stockyards in the small community. The store served as office headquarters for the Spade Ranch and included a general store and post office. The hotel built across the street from the store, provided free accommodations for the Spade Ranch cowboys.
In May 1899, the two companies (Richards and Cairnes, Inc., and Richards and Comstock) merged to form the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company. Bartlett Richards, William Comstock, Jarvis Richards, DeForest Richards, and E.C. Harris of Chadron were named directors. At the time of the merger, the company range included 16,000 head of cattle. Bankers authorized loans of $150,000.00 ($3,817,019.11 current) to purchase additional cattle.
William Comstock stayed in the home valley of the Spade Ranch headquarters, which is approximately 25 miles (40 km) north of Ellsworth. Comstock had a sod house at the headquarters, another soddie as a ranch office, a good-sized bunkhouse, the log cookhouse (the log building moved from the Newman Ranch), a barn, feed yards, large corrals for working with cattle, breaking horses, branding, and dipping cattle, a blacksmith shop, a machine shop and the ranch store. The ranch store featured staple groceries, clothing, supplies, and a place to pick up mail carried from the Ellsworth post office. Later Comstock built a large frame house in the center of Spade operations. One additional house was built as a home for Spade foreman, Mike Peterson. Peterson worked for the Spade for several years, but rather than work for a wage, he received both land and stock.
By January 1899, telephone lines were constructed from Gordon to Ellsworth, and lines were proposed to extend to Rushville, Hay Springs, and Chadron under the new "Ranch Telephone Company". The Ranch Telephone Company was incorporated with Richards as president. Telephone lines connected the cattle-shipping points on the Burlington Railroad—Ellsworth, Lakeside, and Bingham—with Comstock's headquarters at the ranch.
Richards moved his headquarters from Chadron to Ellsworth in 1901 to be closer to the ranch. He completed his brick house in Ellsworth in the summer of 1902. The Richards family had a winter residence built in Coronado, California, that same year.
Richards began to concentrate on upgrading the breeding operation. He experimented with grain feeds to take care of calves and other special feeding problems, and he put windmills for adequate water. Richards and Comstock were the first cattlemen in the area to use chloro-naptholeum, a livestock dip that removed lice, mange, Texas itch, and other external parasites. The Spade Ranch was the agent for this patented product west of the Mississippi River. In 1903, the Spade's Hereford cattle won the Grand Prize at the American Royal Stock Show in Kansas City, Missouri for the best of any breed in both yearling and calf competition.
War widow claims
In 1901, Richards had 400 sections of land surveyed north of Ellsworth and placed a four-wire fence around the 250,000 acres (100,000 ha). This area included government-owned land with 30 reservoirs, each of which had two or three windmills and water tanks for the stock. The fencing of pastures was necessary to prevent scattering of cattle and preserve breeding. To protect grazing lands from settlers, some ranches, such as the Spade, filed 160-acre (65 ha) homesteads where they had built fences. For example, the Spade Ranch paid Civil War veterans, their widows, and others to make the land claims and then transfer the leases to the ranch. This method allowed ranches to protect ranges and buy time in hope that a leasing law would be passed. The first batch of Civil War widows filed for the Spade Ranch in July 1902 and, within a month, enough widow claims had been added to cover the western side of Richard's southern pasture.
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Spade Brand
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1903 Kansas City American Royal Stock Show Grand Prize Cudahy Cup Awarded to the Spade Ranch
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Bartlett Richards (center) age 20
Reviving the Spade – the Bixby acquisition
With the New York Trust Company's takeover of the Spade Ranch following the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company's foreclosure the future of the Spade was in question. In late 1923 Edward M. Brass, and his business partner, Edward P. Meyers, both prominent cattlemen, business men and owners of the Sandhill Land and Cattle Company secured the lease on the Spade Ranch. Brass and Meyers seemed to have uncanny foresight of economic change. Prior to 1922 they had sold most of their cattle at good prices and then leased their ranches out then with cattle prices low in 1923-24, they bought back into the cattle business. Beginning in 1924 management of the ranch was given to Lawrence Y. Bixby, cattleman and former employee of the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company.
Lawrence had first arrived at the Spade Ranch in 1909 at the age of thirteen and grew up observing and working for its owners. In 1908 Bixby's father James, an eastern professor who had moved west for a position at the Spade School, filed on and moved to a section of land four miles (6 km) east of the Spade Ranch Headquarters. On March 3, 1909 the rest of the Bixby family arrived at the depot in Ellsworth. From the back of the wagon, as they freighted north from Ellsworth, Lawrence led their milk cow, Old Roanie, and as they passed the Spade Ranch store, Mike Peterson saw them from the front porch. The Spade Foreman laughed when he saw the Bixby piano in the wagon. "I'll just give them six months," he said. Bixby's mother Jennie worked as a ranch cook at the Spade Headquarters Cookhouse. Lawrence would later recall, "Every time some old drunken cook drank up the extract, the foreman would send someone after mother. I used to go up and help her at the cookhouse. I rode Old Plunger and had an eleven dollar Sears Roebuck saddle." In March 1909 James took Lawrence to a cattle sale near Hay Springs, Nebraska. There they bought 28 head of heifers for $467.00. This was the start of Bixby's herd and with the help of a neighbor they trailed the cattle south for the Spade. They stayed the first night at Newton's Ranch and the next at Sam Green's. "Mr. Green couldn't read nor write," Lawrence wrote, "but he would tell us wonderful stories about Quantrill's Raiders. We stopped at the Spade and branded our heifers with the J Lazy B but before long Newton came with the sheriff and said he was short two white-faced heifers. We had no way to prove what we knew had happened, so we had to see them go". James chose the tranquil name of Cloverleaf Ranch for their new homestead but in the first year a rattlesnake bit their dog Spot, James killed a wolf and a neighbor threatened to contest Lawrence's sister Ina's homestead filing unless they gave him a cow, calf and a spool of wire.
In 1909 Bartlett Richards bought 20,000 head of cattle from Mexico and in November of that year a very strong snow storm incapacitated the area. "The Spade lost 10,000 of those cattle," Lawrence said, "and there was a pile of hides in Ellsworth as high as the depot." Lawrence and his brother Ona skinned cattle for 50 cents a head, 25 cents per calf and everyday the intense cold brought more losses to the Spade. When Lawrence was old enough to file on a homestead, he described his land on the Alkali Lake Meadow as a quarter-mile deep and two miles wide, but he met requirements and received patent on the string of 40's in 1918. In 1925 Brass and Meyers arranged with Lawrence to buy the hay and have him care for and feed their cattle which were branded with Sandhills Land and Cattle Company's Sugar Bowl brand. Early on, Brass assisted Bixby with a $2,000.00 ($24,031.37 current) down payment on a loan to buy 2,000 acres (810 ha) of the Spade land. Beginning in 1925, Bixby slowly began to obtain sections of the old Spade Ranch range by hard work and perseverance, aided by bankers willing to take a chance. In 1926, Brass and Meyers suggested Bixby move to the ranch headquarters in the Spade home valley. The same year Lawrence was asked by the Union Pacific assistant treasurer C.T. Cullen for permission to bring a hunting party to the Spade and for a number of years the men came in a private railroad car, bringing their own cook and paid handsomely for hunting rights on Bixby land and lakes. Mr. Cullen dropped by the day Lawrence was checking applications for the district school, where he was a board member. "Hire this one with the Irish eyes," Mr. Cullen suggested and in time Miss Eleanor Riordan of York, Nebraska began teaching Cherry County District #168. Lawrence conscientiously kept in touch with the young teacher and the day after her term ended they were married in Alliance, Nebraska on May 26, 1927. Edward Brass had no son and Lawrence's father James had died in 1918 so a deepened friendship between the young rancher and veteran cattleman became a strong business bond. When a buyer carrying a Brass and Meyers checkbook loaded them in 1929 with 14,000 head of Texas yearlings, Brass depended on Bixby to find the rangeland. The ranch leases that Bixby negotiated and held included 10,000 acres from Emmett Green, 10,000 acres at Spring Lake, a lease from Lester Hull on the Old Overton at 30,000 acres, the 19,000 acre Coffee Ranch on Leander Creek near Merriman and 20 sections on the Old Matador Ranch west of Kyle, South Dakota near Bear Creek. Edward Brass died in 1929, leaving Meyers in full control of the Sandhills corporation. In the late 1920s with Bixby running 12,000 head of Brass and Meyers hereford cattle, 3000 head of his own hereford's and a large draft and quarter remuda the ranch prospered but during the depression of the 1930s, Meyers reduced the company's total number of cattle and Bixby's 13-year relationship with the Sandhills Corporation ended in 1937. "In the fall of 1937, I turned back 6,200 head of Sugar Bowl cattle. Ed Brass was dead, E.P. Meyers and Frank Wagoner were gone and the big Brass and Meyers deal was about over. We had 3,000 cows, 25,000 acres of the Spade and all I had to wonder was could I ever pay for it. Ed Brass was a great teacher and cowman. I tried to do everything that way he taught me, and I owe him a lot." Bixby said. By 1940 Bixby had been able to regain 40 square miles (100 km2) of original Spade Ranch range, including the home valley headquarters.
During his ownership Bixby planted thousands of trees in the home valley around the Spade Ranch and installed airstrips for the ranch airplanes. In addition to reviving the Spade Ranch, Lawrence Bixby also returned the Richards Home in Ellsworth, Nebraska to noteworthy status. Since the time of the Richards ownership, the house had been divided into apartments and was in disrepair. In 1953-1954, Lawrence and wife Eleanor moved to the Ellsworth house after it was rehabilitated. In 1965 the ranch headquarters included the large 1889 Comstock-Bixby house where Lawrence's son Jim and family lived, another residence built in 1952 for Lawrence's other son Larry and family, three large bunkhouses, the 1879 log cookhouse, large 1889 horse barn, cattle dipping vat, livestock scales, feed yards, large corrals for working with cattle and breaking horses, calving barns, 1895 blacksmith shop, cattle feed storage facilities, a machine shop and a large three aircraft hangar. Starting in the early 1950s Lawrence served as a high-ranking officer in the Nebraska Stock Growers Association, the Nebraska Beef Council and as president of the Nebraska Flying Farmers and Ranchers Association. In 1954, Bixby donated $60,000 ($473,460.44 current USD) to help pave Nebraska Highway 27 from Ellsworth to Gordon, which passed by the ranch.
Lawrence Bixby admired Bartlett Richards as a man and as a cattleman. "The homesteaders would have starved to death without Richards," he said. " He loaned them milk cows, gave them horses and let them charge at the Spade Ranch Store. Even after the Kinkaid Act people couldn't exist by trying to farm or raise cattle on 640 acres (260 ha). They left and Richards bought their land at fair prices. Through Bixby's efforts, Bartlett Richards was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1970. In 1981 Bixby himself was named a patron member of the Hall and his photograph was etched on a silver plaque in the Founders Hall section. In 1980, the original headquarters and Ranch had listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Following Lawrence Bixby's death in 1982 ranch operations were passed to son James D. Bixby. Jim who had won notoriety in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Calf Roping circuit retained a very large quarterhorse remuda and maintained the Spade's tradition of using only horse and cowboy for daily ranch operations. During his ownership Bixby transitioned the cow herd from Hereford to Angus Cattle due to changing market demands. Jim was very active on and off the ranch until his death from cancer in 1990. The Spade has been operated by Jim's son Bret Y. Bixby, a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Steer Roper, since 1990. Bret, like his father and grandfather before him maintains the Spade's usage of horse and rider.
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Spade Ranch Headquarters (ca. 2009)
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Checking Spade Cattle by ranch aircraft (ca.2009)
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Branding at Spade Ranch (ca. 1963)
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Loading Spade cattle on rail at Ellsworth Stockyards.(William Comstock on left)
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Spade Chuckwagon and part of crew (ca. 1958)
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Dipping and Branding Cattle on Spade Ranch (ca. 1900)
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A team of Haflinger's driven by Clay Bixby at the Spade (ca. 2009)
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Checking a windmill on Spade Ranch summer range (ca. 2009)
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Spade steer calves at Kansas City Stockyards (ca. 1903)
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Ranch Secretary at Ellsworth Office (ca. 1899)
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Lawrence Bixby and Wife Eleanor (ca.1955)
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Richards summer home in Ellsworth (ca. 1910)
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Bartlett Richards with children (ca. 1908)
The Spade Ranch today
The Spade Ranch continues to operate today in the traditional western fashion. Most of the original buildings in the Home Valley of the Spade are extant and functioning in their original capacity. Although ranching operations have changed considerably since the early days of Richards and Comstock, cowboys and ranch hands are still employed by the Bixby's. The number of employees needed to operate the ranch has significantly decreased over the last few years due to advancements in technology and equipment. During the summer months of July and August hay is harvested out the large meadows to be used to feed cattle during winter. Calving season begins in February and tapers off by early April. This is a very critical time and the calving herd requires around the clock supervision. Large roundups are carried out in the spring and fall to ready cattle for market and branding. Branding at the Spade is a large yearly event – cattle are roped from horseback, wrestled by hand and branded with the Spade brand. The Branding is traditionally concluded with a large western dinner. Cattle are no longer shipped to market by train, but rather by cattle truck. Aircraft are used to locate cattle in large pastures, spot downed fences and for ranch business abroad. Bixby Black Angus cattle are nationally recognized for both their quality and genetics. The Bixby Family works closely with the Nebraska State Historical Society and Chadron State College in the preservation and research of the Sandhills region of Nebraska.
Although some ranches around the Spade are no longer working cattle ranches, the Spade Ranch continues to operate as a beef cattle ranch. Richards and Comstock's legacy was carried on by Lawrence Bixby, whose legacy is carried on by his descendants. Historically, the Spade Ranch is an important feature of the landscape of Sheridan County, and it continues to be one today.
Books
Bartlett Richards: Nebraska Sandhills Cattleman written by son Bartlett Richards, Jr. with Ruth Van Ackeren, details the life of Bartlett Richard, Sr. with his personal and business correspondence from his first arriving at Cheyenne, Wyoming in August 1879, his education and apprenticeship with some of the most powerful Havard taught cattle barons of the time, through the rise of his enormous cattle ranching empires in Wyoming and Nebraska, the controversial land trials at the hands of the government and to his unexpected death in 1911.
Lawrence Bixby: Preserver of the Old Spade Ranch written by Ruth Van Ackeren and Robert M. Howard, follows the story of Lawrence Bixby who picked up the pieces of the crumbling Spade Empire to form a second ranching dynasty that forged a path through twentieth century ranching by raising market topping Hereford cattle, award winning Percheron and Belgian Workhorses and producing revered prize winning Calf Roping Quarterhorses, while doing all possible to protect and preserve the ranch he called home.
