Espuela

The Espuela (Spur) Cattle Company, a Texas corporation headed by Alfred M. Britton and S. W. Lomax, was formed in 1883 to establish a ranch in the area east of the Southern High Plains. Later that year the company purchased from the New York and Texas Land Company 242,000 acres in four blocks of railroad lands located in Dickens, Kent, Garza, and Crosby counties in western Texas for $515,440. In 1884 the company reorganized under the corporation laws of Texas and became the Espuela Land and Cattle Company of Fort Worth with the same personnel as the old company. To the new company were transferred the holdings of the Espuela Cattle Company. Inasmuch as the state had retained title to every alternate section in the surveyed blocks of railroad land, and since these sections could be leased at low rates, the Spur range as finally fenced covered some 569,000 acres, including twenty sections of other public lands. Most of the cattle purchased to stock the range were bought from small ranchers who, no longer having access to what had been an "open" range, were forced to sell to the Espuela. In all, the company acquired sixty-one herds and their brands. Among the latter was the Spur, which gave the ranch its name.