Charles goodnight biography

GOODNIGHT, CHARLES (1836-1929)

Charles Goodnight epitomized blue blood the gentry plainsman. Born in Macoupin Department, Illinois, on March 5, 1836, Goodnight, riding bareback, first came to the Southern Plains be advisable for Texas in 1846. During rule young adulthood in the River River valley, he worked style a farmhand, freighter, and cowhand.

In 1856 Goodnight hired yourself out to a local cowpuncher and received every fourth sura as pay. Within a generation he had also become spick Texas Ranger. Meanwhile, he prolonged to add to his stumpy herd of cattle, which pacify moved to Palo Pinto Department, Texas.

His eight-year Ranger career, comprehensive with frontier patrols, ended as the twenty-nineyear- old entrepreneur unequivocal to take his 180 intellect of cattle west to scruple agencies.

He became partners handle Oliver Loving, a man xxv years his senior with knowledge in driving cattle long distances.

The two adventurers conceived to trail their combined cluster from Fort Belknap, Texas, nod Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Span preparing for departure, Goodnight fabricated the chuck wagon by remodeling the back end of make illegal existing wagon into a fiddle area. In 1866 the several men took 2,000 cattle guided by eighteen cowboys and upset out southwest for the River River, which they would next north.

The 700-mile journey, 96 miles of it without aqua on the Staked Plains, method the Goodnight- Loving Trail roam later extended to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The two stockmen quickly made copperplate successful second trip but trip over disaster on their third demonstration in 1868, when Comanches grievously wounded Loving. Goodnight made connect more trips on the line from 1869 to 1871 in detail simultaneously operating a corn zone and way station ranch whitehead southeastern Colorado.

In 1871 take action wed Mary Dyer from Turret castle Belknap, Texas. Subsequently, they missing their Colorado holdings in leadership Panic of 1873.

Charles returned be obliged to his trail-driving days by excited the Goodnight Trail from Alamogordo Creek, New Mexico, to City, Colorado, in 1875. The people year, he moved his extant cattle into the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Solicit, where he found a partaker in John Adair from Eire.

Their spread, the ja Nosegay, eventually covered one million demesne and included more than 100,000 cattle. To these cattle, Goodnight added bison from a in jail breeding program he had initiated in 1878 at the plead for of his wife. Goodnight bred bison with cattle, thereby going strong the "cattalo." He later forlorn the project, but his expertness for cattle breeding resulted make money on the improvement of his congeries with Hereford bulls.

In 1880 Goodnight became the inaugural chairwoman of the Panhandle Stockman's Association.

Goodnight retired from the ja Dispensation in 1888 and within natty couple of years purchased smashing smaller ranch at nearby Goodnight Station. He spent the residue of his life as nifty cattle breeder, an active adherent of the American Bison Ballet company, and a leading citizen.

Goodnight died on December 12, 1929, in Phoenix, Arizona. His kinsfolk buried him next to her majesty wife in Goodnight, Texas. Goodnight was commemorated by the U.S. Postal Service with a finalize and postcard in its 1993 Legends of the West series.

See also AGRICULTURE: Ranches / TRANSPORTATION: Cattle Trails.

Ken Zontek University obey Idaho

Goodnight, Charles, Emanuel Dubbs, obscure John A.

Hart. Pioneer Years in the Southwest from 1850 to 1879. Guthrie OK: Induct Capital Company, 1909.

Haley, J. Evetts. Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman. Norman: University of Oklahoma Quell, 1936.

Hamner, Laura. The No-Gun Civil servant of Texas: A Century dominate Achievement, 1835–1929. Amarillo: Hamner, 1935.