Texas LAND•Spring 2017

TEXAS LAND / Roundup Issue
When the American Civil War was over, thousands of
Confederate soldiers, being without home or job,
went west to Texas to work on the frontier as cattle
hands for the early cattlemen who chose that wonderful area of
free grass.
They took innovation with them: skills as mule skinners, wild
game hunters, craftsmen of all kinds, and, most important, the
desire to live and work outside.
They acquired new skills of riding stock horses and handling
herds of free-range cattle.
To this new and exciting industry they lent the well-worn “rebel
yell” to the driving of cattle, a yell that was feral in nature and
that would soon become the early version of the cattle call. With
this yell, used to coerce cattle to change directions or just move
forward, these men of renown drove the big herds north from
deep South Texas to northern markets. From this era a new “job
title” was coined—cowboy.
Within 10 years, these strong young men would find
themselves handling a
newly invented ferrous
material, barbed wire.
This new metal product
would forever change
the cattle industry by
fencing the open range.
The open range years
were over. Large crews of
former cowboys suddenly
became ranch fence
builders. They traded
their stock horses for
teams of mules, supply
wagons and post-hole
diggers.
They slept on the ground in all types of weather. The great XIT
Ranch of the Texas Panhandle required 6,000 miles of barbed
wire fence. With this new innovation in ranching came another
new job title—fence hand. This class of unsung men contained
those who fenced and secured our ranches and some of their
early work can still be found today in isolated areas.
The First and Second World Wars changed the lives of many
of these ranch laborers, but at the same time, taught them new
skills, the most important of which was welding.
By the early 1950s, ranchers were replacing weaker, wooden
implements with stronger, longer-lasting metal implements built
by the skilled war-welding cowboys. Soon gates were fashioned
of metal rod and pipe. Even metal war-surplus landing mats,
which had been used in the islands as makeshift runways for
war planes, became ranch gates and working-pen fences.
RANCHERS WERE REPLACING
WEAKER, WOODEN IMPLEMENTS WITH
STRONGER, LONGER-LASTING METAL
IMPLEMENTS BUILT BY THE SKILLED
WAR-WELDING COWBOYS
Soon, metal cattle guards, metal cattle chutes, head gates,
even metal cattle pens were built and installed.
Then came the iconic metal cattle trailer, with more changes on
the way. One day the neighbor had a fancy, new, decorative gate
installed on the county road with the addition of a brand logo
to the gate. Soon, names were written in metal script explaining
who the ranch belonged to, the type of cattle raised therein, and
on, and on.
Today, the sky’s the limit! Life-like figures have been added
to gated ranch entrances in recent years, depicting cowboys
roping, horses bucking, cattle drives, silhouettes of big deer—
you name it, you got it. They just keep on ‘a-comin’. As Butch
Cassidy said, “Who are those guys?”
A ranch owner must have good ranch hands. They are the men
who make the ranch go ‘round. Ranch owners can’t operate with
a transient workforce. Good, strong, stable family men, who love
their work more than their pay, are those men who build and
decorate our ranches.
The Browns of Bee
County in South Texas
are most fortunate to
employ one such man.
Pablo Garcia, our ranch
welder and mechanic, is
the best in the business.
He builds our “stuff.” He
builds anything we ask
him to build and when
done, it is perfect for the
use and nice to look at
as a bonus.
Garcia was raised in our
area and was trained as
a mechanic and welder by
his father. He is a pipeline class welder. He can do it all. He
has built all of our feedlot cattle handling facilities and pens
over the 20 years he has worked for us.
Thanks to him, instead of having to stop and open gates,
we sail quickly over numerous pipe cattle guards built and
installed by him.
The ranch welding shop is his domain and where many of
our tools and implements are constructed as well as repaired.
We also take in outside welding from other ranchers as
time permits. Many of these jobs involve decorative ranch
entrances.
It is an honest statement that we would not be able to ranch
as effectively in this fast-paced society we live in without
Pablo Garcia’s faithful work ethic and the necessities and
conveniences he provides for us through his welding skills.
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