Cattle

There is no pure point of origin for the Arizona cattle industry. Notably however, two cattlemen, Wm C. Hooper and Henry C. Hooker, traveling from Texas with their herd of 15,500, stand as one of the beginnings. Hooker, with his four herds from Texas, established the Sierra Bonita Ranch, northwest of Wilcox in Sulphur Springs Valley in 1873.

Henry C. Hooker was known as the King Cattle in his day. After opening the Sierra Bonita Ranch, he started a contracting business that contracted out the animals of his herd.

There are two main concerns for a cattleman. The first is the acquiring of land and the second is the acquiring of water. At least 50,000 acres of average land was needed to graze 1,000 head of neat cattle. The majority of cattle owners throughout Arizona in 1880 held their acreage merely by a possessory title or by the right of first occupation. Otherwise, the law of the territory secured to the ranchmen was a claim established by the earliest settlement or by the purchase of such right from a former occupant.

Water is necessary for making an area pasturable, maintained, and sustainable for all life on the ranch. A stockman could discover or purchase a water claim, and they would drive out with their cattle to claim the area and locate. So long as one made use of the water claim, the right of possession was assured. However, that right could be lost by even the temporary absence of the owner and stock from the locality. A crafty observer could “jump” the claim and usurp the possession, making for an awkward encounter upon arrival! Among ranchmen, however, a tacit recognition of first right generally existed, so the privilege of water was retained with as much surety as any other property.

The location of water supplies restricted grazing, and limited water supplies confined the size of herds. Ranchers were mindful, certain of catching their stock near water. This certainty meant that stockmen did not have to employ so many hands to manage their herds. Furthermore, the isolation of the herd and lack of desire to mingle rendered the “round up” of animals largely unimportant.

From 1876-1880, the cattle industry expanded rapidly in Arizona. The largest individual herd was Hooker’s Texas cattle, and a majority of the cattle were small Mexican herds by Mexican ranchers averaging 50-75 head.

In the early years, very few cattle owners fenced their lands. Those who did used timber, cedar, or pine posts with yellow pine boards because the cost of wagon transportation made wire fencing prohibited. If there was an enclosure, it was very likely a meadow, grain plat less than 100 acres, or stock pastures reserved for dairy herds and horse breeding.

The natural isolation for a rancher and their cattle would be replaced by barbed wire by 1880 as farming homesteaders made their way to the scene. Initially used to keep stray cattle out of planted crop, it was realized barbed wire could be used to further minimize the need of round-ups. In February 25th of 1885, Congress prohibited all enclosure of public domain except under a title legally applied for. There were many violations of the law as cattlemen tried to resist settlers and small stockers.

The primary objective of cattlemen was numbers. Arizona’s ranges became fully stocked. A regional market for beef began to rise by 1885, prompting railroad construction, government posts, miners, and local butchers to enter the untapped market.

With the new companies, a new phrase entered the cattle industry. The “fattening” of cattle provided more product; The Salt River Valley became a prime destination utilized for this purpose. It was not until the availability of cottonseed products that feeding was done on a large scale.

Upon the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1881, thousands of cattle were subsequently imported from Mexico, Utah, and Texas. By 1885, overstocking of the range had destroyed the grass; by next summer, there was a heavy mortality rate among the cattle. The deterioration from cattle-caused erosion of vegetation and man-made channels for the passage of water set the stage for the drastic erosion of the 1890’s, popularizing stock raising instead of stock trading.

Dependance on the railroads for transportation created new difficulties of high freight rates and inadequate cattle cars. The problem was severe enough that, in January 1890, Walter L. Vail and C.W. Cates drove 900 head from the Empire Ranch to California, rather than use the railroad. Other ranchers followed their lead.

It was discovered that the retention of yearlings reduced the coming calf crop and the size of the breeding herd which could be kept. Cattlemen learned that the grazing capacity of the range is the number of cattle which could be carried through the poorest season; their herds consequently improved through the elimination of unprofitable stock. By 1897, Cattlemen were disposing of record numbers of cattle at high prices. The industry would remain unprecedently prosperous into the early twentieth-century.

Open-range ranching gradually became a complicated business. Cattlemen benefitted from the war-boom and from the cessation of frozen beef imports from Argentina. In tandem, all available grasslands were being leased for large numbers of animals from the dry plains of Texas. Stockmen also suffered up to $2 million a year from predatory animals such as coyotes, gray wolves, and mountain lions.

The increase in cattle population, due to importations and heavy calf drops, was accompanied by disproportionate price raises. Stockmen began adopting more intensive methods by becoming farmers as well as ranchers. Permanent sites were developed, dams were installed for water storage and silos were built for storing feed.

Despite the changing global climate, livestock was reported in excellent condition as of 1922.

At the start of The Great Depression, costs of production exceeded market returns, a situation which caused cattlemen to demand a reduction of taxes on livestock and grazing lands. Inspection fees were also burdensome.

The price of all agricultural produce declined. Arizona cotton producers suffered major losses. Cattle and sheep growers felt similarly as the price of beef and wool spiraled downward. Citrus growers also grieved their losses, watching their fruits ripen and fall, only to rot in the groves.

In 1934, Arizona was declared to be a drouth state. All of southern Arizona was classified as an emergency area. The Drouth Relief Program provided cattlemen reasonable prices, the opportunity of culling their herds, and sensational improvements in the industry ended the drouth in 1935.

On June 28th 1934, the The Taylor Grazing Act became the first national law to provide for regulated control of the unappropriated grazing lands and for diversion of certain revenues derived therefrom the states. The bill was to stop injury to the public grazing lands by preventing overgrazing and soil deterioration, to provide for their orderly use, improvement and development, to stabilize the livestock industry dependent upon the public range and for other purposes.

Grazing districts were established to achieve these goals. Permits to graze livestock were issued to stock owners; there was a preference to contiguous owners of land or water rights. This entitled a stock owner to participate in the use of the range upon the payment of a reasonable annual fee based on carrying capacity and lasted ten years. Renewal was subject to the discretion of the Secretary of Interior.

Additional incentive to preserve the land was secured through the Soil Conservation Range Benefit Program of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. This was to encourage range improvement; erosion was checked by the better distribution of stock with fencing, dirt dams, tanks, and wells. Participation was optional; by 1937, some 450 Arizonan ranchers were cooperating.

A year later, the third means of mitigating the deterioration of land was implemented with the Range Conservation Program. This program fostered the practice of deferred grazing, water spreading, gully stopping, spring development, and the eradication of cactus, cedar, and mesquite for conserving grasslands.

The cooperation of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Forest Service were responsible for the successful implementation of many phases of the program on private, public, and tribal-managed Native lands.

The work of a cattleman was the same as the work of a businessman. The complicated story of cattle to Arizona history is nothing short of a collage composed of its people, animals, and land. These interconnected relationships helped foster the world as we know it today, and as everything else in this world, it could never really disappear. That life prevails is best known by the Arizona cattleman of the nineteenth century, and forever goes.