On another page, I was asked to clarify a matter about the famous Quien Sabe Ranch. I think this group might also be interested. The Quien Sabe Ranch began as the Two Moon outfit, which ranged cattle along the Rio Grande from downstream of Fort Hancock up to near Alamogordo, NM. In the early 1880s the operation relocated to the east side of the Pecos upstream of Horsehead Crossing. Bronson Cattle Company, which owned the Quien Sabe, retreated from the Pecos in 1889 and located on a stretch of land centered 18 to 25 miles south of Midland. This new Quien Sabe range, formerly the George Gray ranch, included at least 22 windmills dotting an eventual 500 to 600 sections, all of which was under fence. On Nov. 4, 1896, Mayer & Solomon Halff of San Antonio purchased the Quien Sabe and 11,000 finely bred cattle. Only half a section of the then-100 sections was deeded land. By summer 1902, the Quien Sabes center of operations (if not its official headquarters) was located 20 miles west of Garden City at a location known as Section Fourteen. Eventually, foremen would oversee the ranch from Fighting Hollow, which originally had been an upper headquarters 8 to 10 miles southeast of Midland. Under the management of Cherokee cattleman S. Barnes Tullous, the Quien Sabe--Spanish for Who knows?--maintained a herd of 10,000 to 12,000 cattle and branded 5,000 calves annually. At its height, the Quien Sabe was truly an empire-on-the-hoof. For more information, see my 2000 biography of Mayer Halff, Halff of Texas, which is drawn largely from primary sources. The book is available in Midland at Haley Library Gift Ship, 1805 W. Indiana, or through Amazon: amazon/Halff-Texas-Merchant-Rancher-West/dp/1571684360/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406056425&sr=8-1&keywords=Halff+of+Texas
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 19:40:07 +0000
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