Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to pass through what is now southwest Oklahoma. But they never stayed in the region. Later, in the nineteenth century, members of the U.S. Army also came to this place. One of them was George Armstrong Custer, who traveled through what is now Jackson County in 1869. It was not until the 1870s that people began to take interest in permanently settling in what was then Greer County, Texas.[1] Around that time, the Western Trail began to replace the Chisholm Trail as the best, most direct route for cattle drives going from Texas to railheads in Kansas and Nebraska. The Western Trail was blazed by John T. Lytle in 1874 and crossed the Red River ten miles north of Vernon, Texas. Cowboys who came through on cattle drives following the Western Trail noticed the potential of present-day Jackson County, Oklahoma.[2]
Cattle ranchers came to southwest Oklahoma more than a quarter century before Jackson County was established. As early as 1881, L. Z. Eddleman started the Cross S Ranch around present-day Olustee. About that same time, Cornelius T. Herring began the Herring Ranch near what is now Navajoe. Another operation, the H Cross N Ranch, was established south of present-day Altus.[3] In 1885, the Day Land and Cattle Company leased 203,000 acres in Greer County, Texas (which eventually formed Jackson, Greer, Harmon, and parts of Tillman and Beckham Counties in today's Oklahoma). Livestock was becoming one of America's largest industries, and Greer County, Texas, was home to some 60,000 cattle.[4]
Notes
[1] Cecil R. Chesser, Across the Lonely Years: The Story of Jackson County (Altus, OK: Altus Printing Company, 1971), 137-38; Webb L. Moore, "Greer County,," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed May 5, 2025. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/greer-county.
[2] Chesser, Across the Lonely Years, 137; Carl N. Tyson, “Western Trail,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=WE025.
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