Charles Goodnight (cattle rancher) ["father of the Texas Panhandle"]

an additional source: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgo11 And most recent..

https://youtu.be/lr_fTDtN8IE

The movie "Lonesome Dove" depicted his life.

Charles Goodnight, Jr. was born in 1836 on the farm now owned by Willis Wolf, Jr. He grew up with three other siblings and was raised by his parents, Charlotte and Charles Goodnight, Sr. When he was only five, his father died of pneumonia. Charlotte married a neighboring farmer soon after. When Charlie was ten, the family moved to Texas. There, he began looking for odd jobs at neighboring farms. When he was fifteen, he tried jockeying at a local racing outfit, but found that it didn't suit him as well as ranching and farming. So, he returned home to his mother and continued finding work to do at nearby farms.

At about twenty years old, Charles found his way into the cattle business in northwest Texas, where he also helped out with the local militia. In 1857 Charlie joined the Texas Rangers and fought on the Confederacy’s side in the Civil War.

After the war, he met up with a large group of other men and began helping in a statewide roundup of cattle that had scattered across Texas during the war. After Charlie got his herd back, he had to think of a way to get them out of the almost destroyed South and to the market. He wanted to go further west, where beef was in high demand.

Charlie found a partner in Oliver Loving, whose way of making a living during the Civil War was to sell Confederates his beef. Loving was somewhat of an experienced cattle herder, so he joined Goodnight in his long trek from Texas to New Mexico. Trailing two thousand head, they paved the path that would be later known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. This trail between Belknap and Fort Sumner became one of the most heavily traveled trails in the Southwest.

Oliver Loving died from wounds inflicted by fighting Indians at the very end of their third trip to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Distressed, Charlie turned back from the cattle drive to take his partner’s body safely back to Texas. Charlie kindly continued to divide his profits with his old friend’s family.

In the following years, Goodnight also created a trail singularly named after him that extended from Alamogordo Creek, New Mexico, to Granada, Colorado. In later years, his lead steer, Old Blue, helped him lead several cattle drives. Once, this famous steer helped lead a thousand head 250 miles all the way to Dodge City. That accomplished, Old Blue then turned around and trotted back home with the cowboys.

Traveling the trail everyday carrying minimal baggage in hot, uncomfortable weather was tough on a cowboy. In 1866, Charles saw his opportunity and began on his new invention – the chuck wagon. He basically redesigned a Studebaker wagon to fit a cowboy’s needs. The Studebaker was a tough army surplus wagon that could last months of hard driving on the trails. Goodnight designed his very own chuck box, containing a number of shelves and drawers. He fitted this to the back of the wagon and it served to keep the cook’s things in order. The box had a hinged lid, and when the cook shut it, he would have a perfect surface to fix meals on. A water barrel holding a two days’ water supply was also attached to the wagon alongside a row of hooks, boxes, brackets, and a coffee grinder. Charles also hung a canvas under the wagon (hammock-style) to carry wood and kindling, which is scarce on the prairies. An additional wagon box was used to carry the cowboys’ bedrolls, personal items, and food supplies. Goodnight’s genius invention is used in cattle drives to this day.

On July 26, 1870, Charlie finally tied the knot. The lucky lady was Molly Ann Dyer, affectionately nicknamed Mary. Previously she had been a schoolteacher at Weatherford. The two had been longtime sweethearts, and now, with Charles at age 34 and Mary at age 31, they were married.

At 40 years old, Charlie drifted back to Texas and put his business efforts toward running a ranch in the panhandle. He settled in Palo Duro, an area he was formerly acquainted with from his experience with the Texas Rangers during the Civil War. He partnered up with Englishman John G. Adair, and together they attempted a pioneer venture at the JA Ranch in Palo Duro Canyon. This venture expanded their ranch to over a million acres and 100,000 steers.

Mary faithfully settled down with her husband as the only woman on Charlie and John’s ranch. Mary imprinted her loving nature in the hearts of the cowboys and hands working there. She became known forever as Mother of the Panhandle for acting as a nurse, comforter, nurturer, homemaker, mother, and sister to all those living in Palo Duro around her. Mary adjusted to life in the same canyon where the Indians who killed Oliver Loving had once camped. Women in that time would have cringed, but Mary held onto her faith in Charles and in herself. Horrified at the sometimes brutal ways of men and forever the protector of baby animals on the ranch, she struggled to maintain a halfway civilized way of life. Her only friends were the ranch hands, a few wandering Indians, and several pet chickens she received as gifts.

Yet Mary adapted, and busied herself with the many baby buffaloes left to die on the plains. Abandoned by commercial hunters, the rescued baby buffaloes later made up the Goodnight buffalo herd, which became well known throughout the world. Mary was the one who played the biggest part in building up this herd.

During his eleven years spent at the JA Ranch, Goodnight not only built up the herd and extended the ranch, but he also assisted in enforcing law and order in the area. He helped send numerous outlaws and cattle thieves to justice.

Goodnight was a pioneer in cattle breeding. He successfully crossed Texas longhorns with Herefords, creating a breed of cattle combining the longhorns’ toughness with the Herefords’ more heavyset build. He also created the very first “cattalo” by breeding buffalo and cattle. At 60 years old, Goodnight’s reputation for cattle breeding grew. He is recognized as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, cattle breeders in the American West.

But Charles Goodnight, Jr. didn’t retire then. As if ranching and cattle driving wasn’t enough, he went on to be a very successful entrepreneur, investing in various Mexican mining operations, and even trying his hand at movie producing. As he reached his 90s, he was an internationally recognized figure in range and cattle economics.

At the age of 93 and unknowingly living the last year of his life, Charlie joined a church. Although he had founded and funded many in his lifetime, he had never been a part of one. So, having made his mark on the world, Charles died peacefully on the morning of December 12, 1929. He was buried next to Mary in the panhandle town of Goodnight, Texas. (See FindAGrave memorial for directions and GPS coordinates.)

Charles Goodnight (March 5, 1836 – December 12, 1929) was a cattle rancher in the American West, perhaps the best known rancher in Texas. He is sometimes known as the "father of the Texas Panhandle." Essayist and historian J. Frank Dobie said that Goodnight "approached greatness more nearly than any other cowman of history."

Early years

Goodnight was born in Macoupin County, Illinois, east of St. Louis, Missouri, the fourth child of Charles Goodnight and the former Charlotte Collier. (Goodnight's father's grave is located in a pasture located south of Bunker Hill, Illinois.)

Goodnight moved to Texas in 1846 with his mother and stepfather, Hiram Daugherty. In 1856, he became a cowboy and served with the local militia, fighting against Comanche raiders. A year later, in 1857, Goodnight joined the Texas Rangers. Goodnight is also known for guiding Texas Rangers to the Indian camp where Cynthia Ann Parker was recaptured, and for later making a treaty with her son, Quanah Parker.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate States of America. Most of his time was spent as part of a frontier regiment guarding against raids by Indians.

Cattle

Following the war, he became involved in the herding of feral Texas Longhorn cattle northward from West Texas to railroads. This "making the gather" was a near state-wide round-up of cattle that had roamed free during the four long years of war. In 1866, he and Oliver Loving drove their first herd of cattle northward along what would become known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Goodnight invented the chuckwagon, which was first used on the initial cattle drive. Upon arriving in New Mexico, they formed a partnership with New Mexico cattleman John Chisum for future contracts to supply the United States Army with cattle. After Loving's death, Goodnight and Chisum extended the trail from New Mexico to Colorado, and eventually to Wyoming. Goodnight is reported to have kept a photograph of Oliver Loving in his pocket for a long time after his death. As requested by the dying Loving, Goodnight carried the body from New Mexico to Weatherford, the seat of Parker County, Texas, for burial.

In order to take advantage of available grass, timber, water, and game, he founded in 1876 what was to become the first Texas Panhandle ranch, the JA Ranch, in the Palo Duro Canyon of the south Texas Panhandle. He partnered with the Irish businessman John George Adair to create the JA, which stands for "John Adair". In 1880, Goodnight was a founder of the Panhandle Stockman's Association. The organization sought to improve cattle-breeding methods and to reduce the threat of rustlers and outlaws. After Adair's death in 1885, Goodnight worked in partnership for a time with Adair's widow Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie Adair.

In addition to raising cattle, Goodnight preserved a herd of native American Bison, which survives to this day. He also crossbred buffalo with domestic cattle, which he called cattalo. Charles "Buffalo" Jones, a co-founder of Garden City, Kansas, after meeting with Goodnight in Texas, also bred cattalo on a ranch near Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona.

After Goodnight had already left the JA, Tom Blasingame came to the ranch in 1918. Blasingame worked there most of the next seventy-three years, having, at the time of his death in 1989, become the oldest cowboy in the history of the American West.

Personal life

On July 26, 1870, Goodnight married Mary Ann "Molly" Dyer, a teacher from Weatherford, located west of Fort Worth. Goodnight developed a practical sidesaddle for Molly. Though he was not of his wife's denomination, Goodnight donated money to build a Methodist Church in Goodnight. He and Molly also established the Goodnight Academy to offer post-elementary education to hundreds of children of ranchers.

After Molly died in April 1926, Goodnight became ill himself. He was nourished back to health by a 26-year-old nurse and telegraph operator from Butte, Montana, named Corinne Goodnight, with whom Charles had been corresponding because of their shared surname.

On March 5, 1927, Goodnight turned ninety-one and married the younger Corinne Goodnight, who was hence Corinne Goodnight Goodnight. He joined her Two by Twos church and was baptized a few months before his death in Goodnight, Texas. Evetts Haley had described Goodnight as "deeply religious and reverential by nature."

In his younger years, Goodnight smoked some fifty cigars per day but switched to a pipe in his mature years. He never learned to read or write but had his wives write letters for him to various individuals, including Quanah Parker. During his last illness, he gave his gold Hampton pocket watch to his pastor, Ralph Blackburn.

After he mastered ranching, Goodnight was involved in other activities, including the establishment of his Goodnight College in Armstrong County and working as a newspaperman and a banker. An investment in Mexican silver mines brought financial ruin, and he was forced to sell his ranch. He conveyed the property in 1919 to an oilman friend, W.J. McAlister, with the provision that Goodnight and his then first wife could stay in the home until they both died. He also became interested in film making. Goodnight died in Tucson, Arizona, just two years after sound track was put into film.

In literature

Laura Vernon Hamner, who knew Charles and Molly Goodnight, from her time in Claude, the seat of Armstrong County, Texas, published a novelized biography of the cattleman, The No-Gun Man of Texas in 1935, six years after his death.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove and its sequels, Larry McMurtry based the relationship between Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call on the relationship between Goodnight and Loving. The grave marker Call carves for one of the characters late in the novel is based on an actual gravestone Charles Goodnight had created, and the trek back to Texas at the end of the novel is based on Goodnight's return of Loving's body to Texas.

There are other notable influences from Goodnight's life in the novel as well. All four novels include brief appearances by Goodnight as a character, and he plays his largest role in the final (chronological) volume of the series, Streets of Laredo. Goodnight also appears briefly in the prequel Dead Man's Walk and in a more prominent role in the sequel Streets of Laredo, where he and Call have become good friends. However, Goodnight's appearance as a character in Dead Man's Walk is historically inaccurate. The action of the novel is set during the Santa Fe Expedition of 1841. Goodnight appears as a young man in the novel, but would have been only five years old at the time. Goodnight is played in Dead Man's Walk by Chris Penn, in Comanche Moon by Jeremy Ratchford and in Streets of Laredo by James Gammon.

The Western novelist Matt Braun's novel Texas Empire is based on the life of Goodnight and fictionalizes the founding of the JA Ranch.

The song The Goodnight-Loving Trail by Utah Phillips describes a chuckwagon cook on a cattle drive.

The West Texas songwriter Andy Wilkinson wrote "Charlie Goodnight: His Life in Poetry and Song". The CD was produced by Lloyd Maines.

Mari Sandoz [Old Jules Country] in the part "Some dedicated Men" relates the difficulties of Goodnight's cattle drives to Colorado. [pages 171–175]

In James Michener's book Centennial, the Skimmerhorn Trail is based on the actual Goodnight-Loving Trail.

Ralph Compton's novel The Goodnight Trail, is heavily based on the first use of Goodnight's Trail.

Restoration of the Goodnight House

The Goodnight home, located twelve miles east of Claude off U.S. Highway 287, is undergoing renovation through auspices of the Armstrong County Museum. The structure has been painted to resemble its appearance in 1887. Montie Goodin, a member of the museum board who was born in the Goodnight house in 1931, two years after Goodnight's death, said that Goodnight had no concept of his own importance: "It didn't matter who you were, he invited all in."[7]

The house, included in the National Register of Historic Places, had electricity, natural gas, water and two bathrooms and sheltered hundreds of ranch workers and cowboys over the years. Since 2006, the Armstrong County Museum in Claude has been raising money to restore the structure and make it the centerpiece of the planned Charles Goodnight Historical Center. Nearly $1.8 million has been raised, but another $600,000 is needed. The funds have been contributed by several Amarillo-area philanthropies as well as fundraisers from the Texas Historical Foundation. The first phase of the restoration, which included work on the foudation, porches, roof, and exterior paint, has been completed. Goodin said that the next step will include interior painting and wallpapering. A small rope bed built by Adam Shiek, Goodnight's second stepfather, a minister and a furniture maker, will be placed in the house upon renovation. Ruth Robinson of Clarendon, the seat of Donley County, who is a great-great-niece of Goodnight's, donated the bed as well as her mother's Victorian bedroom set.

Namesake

The following are named after Goodnight:

1. Charles Goodnight Memorial Trail
2. Former town of Goodnight (now a ghost town) in Armstrong County, site of the former Goodnight Baptist College, and birthplace in 1920 of the scientist Cullen M. Crain
3. Several streets in the Texas Panhandle
4. The highway to Palo Duro Canyon State Park
5. The annual Goodnight Award recognizes an individual or business for sharing Goodnight's love of the land and for protecting the Western heritage of Texas[8]
6. The annual Charles Goodnight Chuckwagon Cookoff held in September in Clarendon is the principal fundraiser for the Saints' Roost Museum, which includes a Goodnight exhibit