Young Bosses

By Jim Jennings

As a rule, ranch managers earn their positions. And most of the time, the person selected for the job has matured and is at least as old if not older than the employees he directs. Most of the time, but not always. There have been a few instances where the youngest man on the crew was the manager.

The famed Waggoner Ranch, near Vernon in North Texas, was founded in 1852 by Dan Waggoner, who at the time, had a young wife and an infant son, Tom. He had one helper on the ranch. By 1868, the Waggoner outfit had grown considerably, but help was still short. Dan’s son Tom was 16 when his father sent him to Kansas City with a herd of 5,000 steers. To make the trip, Dan gave Tom $12, a group of drovers and 50 sore-backed saddle horses. Tom got the steers to Kansas City and still had money in his pocket for the return trip to Texas.

When Tom was 17, his dad made him a full partner in the ranch. By the time he was 27, Tom had the reins of the Waggoner cattle empire, which became the nation’s largest ranch under one fence.

At about the same time Dan Waggoner was putting his spread together, a 20-year-old S.B. “Burk” Burnett bought a herd of cattle branded with four sixes. Burk subsequently adopted the brand as his own and later established the legendary Four Sixes Ranch.

But by the time he bought the branded cattle, Burk was already a veteran in the livestock industry. He had joined his father in the cattle business when he was 10, and in the 1860s, his father sent him, as a lad of 17, on his first trail drive to the markets in Kansas. Two years later, at 19, Burk headed north with another herd of cattle, this time as the trail boss.

It was on the latter trip that he had the opportunity to display his maturity. Somewhere in Oklahoma Territory, Indians hit the herd one night and stole all the horses except the night horses the cowboys were riding. Burk moved the herd out the following morning, with half the cowboys walking, and continued north until he was able to purchase more mounts.

When he reached Kansas, he found that the market had bottomed out. Selling his cattle would mean a tremendous loss. He, of course, had no way to communicate with his father, so he made the decision to overwinter the cattle in Kansas. He grazed the animals all winter and sold them the following year for a profit.

In 1903, Tom Waggoner, perhaps remembering his own teenage managerial experiences, made 18-year-old Lige Reed wagon boss of the Waggoner Ranch. That put Lige over all the ranch’s cowboys, including those who were older than Lige.

The youngster voiced his concerns about that to Tom, who in return gave Lige two pieces of advice: First, he told Lige, always keep the wagon ahead of the drive. That way, the boys would be moving forward all the time; they wouldn’t be slowing up or turning back when they got hungry. Second, Tom told him, always have the cook, when he parked the wagon each night, face it in the direction he was going to travel the next day.

“That way,” Tom said, “he won’t have to waste time turning around in the morning.” ✪

Reprinted with permission from The American Quarter Horse Journal. 

—WRCA—

This article appears in the December 2024 issue of the Hungry Loop.  Would you like to read more stories about the WRCA and ranching life? When you become a member of the Working Ranch Cowboys Association, you’ll receive the Hungry Loop and much more while supporting the working cowboy. Become a member today. 

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