Capt. W. S. Ikard of Henrietta brought the first Hereford cattle into Texas in 1876. Championed by such visionary ranchers as Charles Goodnight, Herefords soon replaced the legendary Texas Longhorn. By 1949, 75 percent of the cattle in Texas were Herefords.

When W. S. Ikard saw his first Hereford cattle at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, it changed the Texas beef industry forever.

William Susan "Sude" Ikard of Henrietta, Texas, is credited with bringing the first Herefords to Texas, and within a few decades the sturdy, white-faced breed would dominate the Texas range.

Born in Mississippi in 1847, Ikard was raised in Parker County, Texas, when it was arguably the most violent area in the United States. The family fought several battles with the Indians during the 1850s to 1870s. In 1863, he joined a Confederate militia unit to defend the North Texas frontier, rising to the rank of captain.

Worthy of a legend
The story of his entry into the cattle business is the stuff that legends are made of. In 1865, Sude and his brother, Elisha Floyd, began rounding up cattle that had strayed south to Parker County during the winter. They built their own herd by returning the strayed cattle to their owners and collecting a dollar a head, payable in cash or cattle. By 1867 the brothers were trailing their own cattle up the Chisholm Trail to Kansas City as many as three times a year.

It was in 1869 while Ikard was on the trail with cattle from Texas to the Kansas market that he passed through the Wichita Falls area and envisioned a fertile country for cattle. Through various business ventures he built his range to 187,000 acres in this area, with headquarters on the V-Bar springs north of Mankins, Texas.

Ikard saw his first Herefords while attending the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Exhibitors at the show convinced him that this breed would be adaptable to southwestern range conditions.

With a belief in the white-faced animals he saw, he purchased 10 head and shipped them by rail to Denison, Texas. There they were unloaded and trailed overland to his ranch holdings.

Ikard persists
All but one died of tick fever. Undaunted, Ikard went back for more. Over a period of years he meticulously built up immunity to the fever tick in his herd.

Ikard’s name is also connected with another significant event in Texas cattle history. On Feb. 15, 1877, in Graham, Texas, Ikard and Bro. was one of a handful of North Texas ranches that joined together to form the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas, forerunner of today’s Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.

W. S. later purchased Hereford cattle bearing the royal brand of Queen Victoria—cattle which had been imported from the queen’s herds in England.

He helped spread the new cattle blood over the Southwest, with many of his bulls going to ranches as far away as New Mexico. Many of them were sold for $75 each as herd bulls.

W. S. Ikard "was a persistent showman and quite a constructive breeder, although his females invariably proved to be better animals than his males," recalled John P. Lee, an Ikard contemporary. Ikard exhibited his herd until he was well up in years, though none of his heirs saw fit to carry on.

Breeders organize
Near the turn of the century, the new beef breed was gaining prominence in the Lone Star State.

It was in 1899 during the San Antonio International Live Stock Exposition that a group of a dozen cattlemen met and decided that in order to create more interest and protect the then-new breed, they must organize.

A small boot shop in San Antonio, Nov. 7, 1899, was the scene of the first meeting of the Texas Hereford Association. The original membership included, among others, Capt. Ikard; B.C. Rhome Jr.; Frank Yearwood, Georgetown; J. B. Salyer, Jonah; Chas. Payne, San Angelo; V. Weiss, Beaumont; M. S. Gordon, Weatherford; Bob McNutt, Fort Worth; and John R. Lewis, Sweetwater.

Elected president was the man who had done so much to promote interest in this new breed— Capt. Ikard. He served as president until 1904 and was active in the association’s work until his death in Henrietta, Sept. 13, 1934, at the age of 87.

B.C. Rhome
Succeeding Ikard as president was B. C. Rhome Sr. of Fort Worth.

Born in Georgia, Rhome moved to Texas as a young child. During the Civil War, he served in the 18th Texas Infantry, and when it was over, worked in a mercantile business in Smith County. In 1879, he entered the cattle business and moved to Wise County. The town of Rhome is named after him.

A successful, constructive breeder, Rhome brought many outstanding bulls to Texas and established a registered Hereford herd as early as 1887. His Hereford Park ranch became famous and furnished the foundation for many leading herds in the area.

William Powell
Rhome formed a partnership with William Powell, a Hereford promoter from Beecher, Ill. Born in Herefordshire, England, Powell was a descendant of Styles Powell, one of the first breeders of the cattle that made the area famous. William immigrated to the United States and formed his own herd.

Powell moved to Texas in 1886 and he and Rhome operated a ranch near Childress. In 1888 he began his famous Home Herd near Channing and supplied purebred Herefords to ranchers throughout Texas.

His brother James joined him on the Channing ranch in 1896, and by 1904 it was the largest Hereford-breeding establishment in the United States. After William Powell’s death in 1917, James and his two sons continued to breed registered Herefords.

The show ring also played a significant role in promoting Hereford cattle in Texas. B.C. Rhome was prominent in the movement to establish the Fort Worth Stock Show and was identified with it until he died on Nov. 10, 1919, at age 81.

B. C. Rhome Jr.
His son, B. C. Rhome Jr., was equally involved in Hereford promotion. He followed in his father’s footsteps by serving as Texas Hereford Association president from 1915 to 1916. B. C. Jr. was manager of the Fort Worth Stock Show in 1907 and 1908 when it was floundering due to a dearth of money and exhibitors. He saved it with a flair for promotion that made his father proud.

During the fall show season, B. C. Rhome Jr. threw a huge dinner for exhibitors at the American Royal in Kansas City. He put a fancy bottle of champagne at each plate and invited each exhibitor to join him at the Fort Worth show in January. Many of them came, and the Fort Worth show was back on solid financial ground.

The Rhome family was successful in the ring, showing many champions. They were also innovative. Their herdsman, "Dad" Short is believed to be the first to wash and curl the hair of show cattle. And B. C. Jr. made sure it would shine by hand feeding each of his show animals a handful of brown sugar each day.

The Lee Brothers
The third president of the Texas Hereford Association was Phil C. Lee of San Angelo, who served from 1908 to 1910. In 1915 he was elected president of the American Hereford Breeders Association—the first Texan to hold the position.

Phil and his brother, John P. Lee of Tankersley, had a show herd at the International Show at San Antonio but returned to their ranch in Tom Green County before the association’s organizational meeting. The firm of Lee Bros. joined a month later in December, 1899.

M. S. Gordon of Weatherford, one of the organizers, served as the first secretary. Gordon remained in the business only a few years, but stayed long enough to hold one of the first auction sales in Texas in 1904. Lee Bros. bought him out in the spring of 1906 when he retired. John Lee succeeded Gordon as association secretary, serving for 18 years, from 1906 to 1924.

John and Phil Lee were born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1875 and 1876, respectively. Their father, Philip C. Lee, moved to Texas in 1879 and established a ranch near San Angelo. The family joined him later. The father was killed in 1890 when a horse fell on him, and John—only 14—took over management of the ranch.

In 1886 and 1887, their father had tried to improve the 10,000-head grade herd by bringing in 146 bulls from Illinois, Kansas and Missouri. The bulls were Shorthorn, Hereford and Hereford-Shorthorn cross. The following year, about 100 of the bulls died from tick fever. However, the calves of these bulls were used to improve the grade herd.

Drought in the early 1890s nearly drove the brothers out of business. When they gathered up the remnants of the herd, it was the Herefords that had survived; they began breeding up a purebred herd. There was a good market for good breeding stock at the run of the century and Lee Bros. flourished. During 1910 to 1920, their registered herd grew to contain 200 mother cows.

Charles Goodnight
No list of early-day Texas Hereford breeders would be complete without the name of Col. Charles Goodnight, who introduced the breed into the Panhandle in 1883. Goodnight is generally recognized as the pioneer in the movement to supplant the Texas Longhorn with well-bred Herefords.

He imported 40 bulls from Herefordshire, England, in 1884 and encouraged other ranchers to improve their herds by crossbreeding. Thousands of Hereford cattle were trailed from Dodge City, Kan., to the Panhandle between 1882 and 1888.

Goodnight sold his Hereford herd in 1897 to Col. C.C. Slaughter of Dallas (a founder and second president of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association).

C. C. Slaughter
Christopher Columbus "Lum" Slaughter was born on Feb. 9, 1837, in Sabine County, Texas. He learned to work cattle as a boy, and at age 12 helped drive the family’s 92-head herd to a new ranch on the Trinity River in Freestone County.

The ambitious youngster regularly helped ranchers from the Brazos country cross their herds over the flooded Trinity en route to market. He noticed that the Brazos cattle were better and convinced his father to move. In 1856, he drove 1,500 head to the new ranch in Palo Pinto County. It was an ideal location for providing beef to Fort Belknap and surrounding Indian reservations.

Slaughter’s ambitious nature continued to drive his success in later years. In 1877, intent on becoming a "gentleman breeder," he established the Long S Ranch on the headwaters of the Colorado River. Between 1877 and 1905 he expanded his holdings to 40,000 head of cattle and more than a million acres of land.

Slaughter was determined to build the largest and best Hereford herd in the world . . . and cost was no object. "If we don’t aim high, we cannot expect to get high," he told his son George.

In 1893 he purchased Ancient Briton, grand champion bull at the Chicago World’s Fair and Columbian Exposition, for the record price of $2,500. Six years later in Kansas City, he was not to be denied in a bidding war for T.F.B Sotham’s prize-winning Sir Bredwell. He paid an unheard of $5,000 for the bull.

The record price made headlines across the country. Estimated value of the publicity generated was a half a million dollars if paid for at regular advertising rates. Slaughter milked it for more by shipping the bull to Texas in a specially rented boxcar. A sign on the side proclaimed, "I am Sir Bredwell and I am heading for Colonel C. C. Slaughter’s Ranch in Texas."

Slaughter exhibited the great bull at one of the earliest shows in Fort Worth. John Lee recalled that occasion:

"We showed under the live oak trees on Marine Creek, near the old Stockman’s Hotel before tick eradication was completed," said Lee. "Sir Bredwell was exhibited in a box car and the judges entered the car by a ladder to pass on him."

W. C. Dibrell
Reminiscing about his peers in the Hereford business many years later, John Lee related the unusual success story of the Dibrell family.

"W. C. Dibrell of the Echo Ranch in Coleman County established his herd in 1887 with the purchase of four head of registered cattle at the Dallas Fair," Lee remembered. "One bull died of tick fever, one heifer choked to death on a salt sack and one cow, Breeze 21st, built the Dibrell herd of several hundred cattle."

W.C.’s son J. C. reported that the family sold descendants of that one cow for a total of $270,000! Here is his account, published in the August, 1920, issue of The Cattleman:

"Our herd of registered Herefords was founded by the late W. C. Dibrell by the purchase of one bull, Bangor 28747 by Conqueror, and one cow, Breeze 21st 21984 by Prosey. He paid $100 each for them at the Dallas, Texas, fair in 1887. At that time there were no Herefords in West Texas and the friends of W. C. Dibrell joked him about his ‘pretty playthings.’

"Breeze 21st was a regular breeder and most of her calves were females. At the time of her death, May 20, 1903, she had 162 descendants. To date our family has recorded in the American Hereford Cattle Breeders’ Association 1,040 head, the same being the direct descendants of the one cow. For more than 20 years we never sold a female, and we have sold very few since. This illustrates what can be done with this wonderful breed of cattle.

"In this period of 32 years, our cattle have got through two very disastrous drought periods, but their wonderful constitutions seem to withstand all climatic changes.

"Taking $260 as the average price of all cattle sold by us and multiplying it by 1,040 gives $270,400. Divide by 32 and you have an annual income of $8,450 on an investment of $100 for the cow Breeze 21st. A beautiful marble shaft marks the resting place of our family cow."

By the time the Texas Hereford Association celebrated its golden jubilee in 1949, Texas had one-fifth of the registered Herefords in the entire United States—largest number by far, of any state. It was estimated that at least 75 percent of the beef cattle raised in the Lone Star State were Hereford.