Despite Goodnight’s dream of a cattle empire in Colorado, his most successful year—1871—netted him and a partner only seventeen thousand dollars. It was the year he married Ann Dyer.
In 1876 he moved from Colorado to Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle. Just a year later he went into partnership with John G. Adair, and in time the JA ranch ran more than a hundred thousand head of cattle on a million acres of land.
Goodnight developed one of the nation’s finest herds by introduction of Hereford bulls. He pioneered the breeding of buffalo to Polled Angus cattle, resulting in the first “cattalo.”
In 1880 Goodnight was one of the founders of the Panhandle Stockmen’s Association. In 1887 the Adair ranch was divided between Goodnight and Adair’s widow. Three years later Goodnight sold his portion. His last years were spent at his small ranch in Goodnight, Texas, a Panhandle town named for him. His first wife died in 1926, and a year later, at age ninety-one, he married Corrine Goodnight. Charles Goodnight died on December 12, 1929, at his winter home in Tucson, Arizona.
Cullen Montgomery Baker was killed on January 6, 1869, by a group of men that included his father-in-law.
This is a work of fiction, based on actual trail drives of the Old West. Many of the characters appearing in the Trail Drive Series were very real, and some of the trail drives actually took place. But the reader should be aware that, in the developing of characters and events, some fictional literary license has been employed. While some of the characters and events herein are purely the creation of the author, every effort has been made to portray them with accuracy. However, the inherent dangers of the trail are real, sufficient unto themselves, and seldom has it been necessary to enhance their reality.
THE GOODNIGHT TRAIL
Copyright © 1992 by Ralph Compton.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 978-0-312-92815-5
The Goodnight Trail Page 37