JA Ranch

The JA, the oldest ranch in the Texas Panhandle, has an illustrious history, tied to one family since the Panhandle was first settled. A fantastic link to JA photographs by Erwin E Smith in 1908. Click on ranch description for description of ranch by Jay O'Brien, cowboys to see the JA Crew, reunion to read about the 2002 JA reunion, remuda to see the ranch's horses, or hunt to see deer and aoudad .

Cornelia Wadsworth was born in 1837 in Geneso, New York on a farm her ancestors had purchased from the Seneca Indians. Hence, her tradition was one of keeping land in a family. In 1857, she married Montgomery Ritchie (1826-1864) of Boston. He served with the Second Infantry Battalion of the New England Guard during the Civil War. After the battle of the Wilderness, Ritchie crossed the Confederate lines and retrieved the body of this father-in-law General James Wadsworth and escorted it back to Geneseo. Just a few months later, Ritchie was killed in battle.

Cornelia Ritchie took her two sons to Europe to be educated. While there, she met and married an Irish landowner named John Adair in 1867. The Adairs moved to New York, where Adair had already established a brokerage office (borrowing large sums in Ireland at 4% interest and lending small sums at 10% interest, but Adair’s Irish temper was inadaptable to New York City’s society or to the Wadsworth’s peaceful farm life.

Erwin E. Smith, Day Herder with the JA Overlooking a Fork of the Red River and Taking Things Easy, 1908

Mrs. Adair’s grandson Montie Ritchie always suspected that the Wadsworth’s heard of the rugged frontier types in the mining towns of the west and decided they had just such a one in John Adair in the bosom of their own family. He felt they promoted, perhaps, John’s departure for the wild west. During the year 1874, the Adairs journeyed west to Colorado, riding up the Platte River from Sidney, Nebraska, visiting Indian lodges as they went and protected by an escort of Cavalry. They spent the summer inspecting potential mining investments in Colorado. The highlight of their trip was a buffalo hunt on the plains of the Colorado guided by Charles Goodnight. Around the campfire at night, Goodnight told them of the Palo Duro Canyon in Texas and explained its unique properties for a cattle ranch where the cattle could roam as the buffalo did and thrive, grazing on the surrounding plains in the summer and wintering in the shelter of the canyons. Alas the buffalo hunt ended on an unfortunate note when John Adair’s horse, galloping after buffalo, stepped in a prairie dog hole and fell. John Adair’s gun accidentally discharged, killing his horse. John himself sustained serious injury as a result of the fall.

Returning in 1876, the Adair’s rode with Mr. And Mrs. Goodnight from Pueblo, Colorado to the where the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River had formed Palo Duro Canyon. Just two years earlier, the Indians had been subdued on what was to become the ranch near Battle Creek. Finding it as Mr. Goodnight had represented, they formed a five year term partnership with Goodnight. Charles Goodnight was to provide the know how and the Adair’s the money to purchase the land to control the grazing of at one time almost one million acres of land on both sides of the Palo Duro Canyon. John Adair’s initials became the brand.

Adair had been lending money at venture capital rates, and this was no exception. The partnership had to pay interest and a $2,500 salary to Goodnight before the profits were split two-thirds to Adair and one-third to Goodnight. The first purchase was 12,000 acres purchased from surveyors Gunter and Munson for seventy-five cents per acre with an option to buy 12,000 additional acres of his choice. Goodnight said, "I took all the good land and all the water I could get." On the second 12,000 acres, Goodnight said, "Well, I scattered all over the Palo Duro canyon; every good ranch in the country, every place a man was liable to come, I took. We surveyed for four or five days and Gunter got to kicking and said, 'Why don't you take this land?' I said, 'I don't want it.' He said, 'I ain't going to run this outfit all winter for you.' I said, 'You contracted to, didn't you?' He said, 'No, I didn't." I said, 'You had better get your contract out and read it.' It stated just what I had claimed.

"Well, we ran all over this country and kept surveying and designating and taking; spotting it up so they couldn't sell it to anybody else. And then he entered into a contract with me that he wouldn't sell to a cattleman unless he bought a ranch."

Communication between the two men demonstrated that Goodnight was continuously wanting to expand and Adair desired to expand slowly and logically. Adair understood the power of capital and subsequent acreage was purchased for twenty-five to thirty-five cents per acre. The largest purchase was the Tule Creek Ranch, for which the JA paid twenty cents per acre. Land was owned principally in Armstrong, Donley, Briscoe, Swisher, and Hall Counties.

Construction on the present ranch house was started in 1879. At the time it was just a cabin built from cedar logs.

Herd improvement started in 1881 with the purchase of 200 shorthorn bulls. These must not have proved satisfactory, as the JA purchased 25 Hereford bulls and 625 Hereford cows in 1883. The ranch ran Herefords until 1991.

In 1883, they also fenced the Quitaque ranch. At this time, they had 1,335,000 acres and 100,000 cattle. They had just renewed their five year contract. After paying Adair's substantial interest payment, they still showed a $512,000 profit.

Tim Stout on Stylish 2000 carries forward the JA's Mrs. Adair's of Bay horses--photographed by Western Horseman.

John Adair died in 1885 prior to the expiration of the second term of the contract with Charles Goodnight. Mrs. Adair continued all her life to take an intense personal interest in the growth and operation of the ranch. She insisted on a remuda of all bay horses, and imported purebred Hereford cattle from England. Once, when she found a portion of the ranch stocked with spotted SanSimone cows, she was so outraged that she discharged the foreman who had been responsible for this aesthetic affront.

Mrs. Adairs son Jack (1861-1924) worked on the ranch as a young man and came to manage the Tule ranch which was then the steer division. During this time he lived in a dugout on the plains on the south side of the Palo Duro Canyon. He often told his son Montie that those were, perhaps, the happiest days of his life. Goodnight did not feel as warm about Jack and demoted him to a cowboy when he found him drinking and gambling with the hands.

When the Goodnight-Adair partnership dissolved in 1887, Goodnight took the 140,000 acre Quitaque ranch and 20,000 cattle for his interest.

Mrs. Adair was an extremely social person and lived in very considerable style. It bothered her and her ambitions for her son when her elegant friends inquired about the welfare of her handsome boy, and she had to reply, “My son is punching cows in Texas.” Her concern for her son’s future prompted her eventually to order him away from the ranch, egged on perhaps by Goodnight’s allegation he was shooting craps with the cowboys. Jack then became a sportsman and worldwide adventurer, engaging in activities ranging from buying JA horses for the New York City Police to visiting ranches in Outback, Australia. He enlisted in the English Army during the Boer War, where his knowledge of living on the Texas prairie was ideally suited to organize the movements of men and horses across the South African Veldt.

When Mrs. Adair died in 1921 in England, her son was living there too, but his health had so deteriorated he could not return to Texas to care for his heritage. He died in England three years after Mrs. Adair. His English wife felt so strongly about her English family ties she was renaturalized a British subject and raised her family in Europe.

Mrs. Adair's grandson Montie Ritchie kept a broken hairbrush for years. Mrs. Adair had spanked him for bursting into her bedroom and finding her without her wig, breaking the brush. She often rented an estate in the country for the summer and he would go and visit her there. Otherwise, he did not see her much.

Jack's stories so impressed his son Montie that, having completed an education in Europe at 21, he traveled to the ranch to see these wonders and perhaps to check on the veracity of the wild tales his father had told. Never having been in the United States before, in 1931, Montie and his brother Dick braved the dust bowl and Montie arrived at ranch to remain for the rest of his life.

Beautiful open winters were part of the reason Goodnight located off the caprock.

In 1931, the ranch was being run by Timothy Dwight Hobart. Hobart, possibly influenced by his son who wished to run the JA, tried to dissuade Montie from staying. Among other things, they put him on a bronc that bucked him off and they rode off and left Montie. Snooks Sparks was a young cowboy at the time and says that Montie received all of the toughest horses.

Hobart had run White Deer Land and Cattle Company and mainly knew how to sell land. He did not know a lot about the cattle business. He had plans to sell the JA as he had sold the land of White Deer Land and Cattle Company.

Some loyal cowboys told Montie that Hobart was trying to get rid of him. Montie returned to England and obtained power of attorney from the eight heirs to the ranch. When he returned, he took over the ranch.

He assumed the management in 1935. There have been many, many changes here since then. Mostly for the worse, I often think. These wagons for instance, were for months on end, the home and sole source of supply for our cow wagon crew. Today they are curiosities." The wagon quit going out in 1954 according to Jiggs Mann.

Ritchie bragged of "a fourth generation who loves the ranch and knows most of its secret places and will likely carry on the family tradition, my daughter Cornelia Wadsworth." Since then, there is a fifth generation, Andrew Bivins.

Ritchie told of the heart of the JA, when he said, "Nobody or organization succeeds alone in this world so the fact that we are able this year to celebrate our 100th birthday is due in large part to the wonderful, loyal men and women, leader who worked for and with us, men of imagination, men of skill, men of courage, men who braved the elements day or night, men who took pride in their crafts, loved their horses and understood their cattle and were eager to enhance the reputation of the JA and proud to be a part."

When M. H. W. Ritchie took over the ranch, it was in terrible shape. Not only was the country in the midst of a depression, but the drought of the '30's was well under way. His grandmother's estate placed a large debt load on the ranch. Hobart had recommended selling the ranch, but Montie weathered through, getting the ranch out of debt, buying out the other heirs and caring for the land.

Over the years, Montie Ritchie sold off parts of the original ranch and purchased a Colorado ranch between Colorado Springs and Denver. He also purchased a spectacular art collection which has been donated to the Dixon Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.

JA management team in Colorado Jay O'Brien, Ninia Ritchie, Andrew Bivins and Dale Smith

Montie retired in 1993 and his daughter Ninia formed a partnership with Jay O'Brien of Amarillo. They are changing the cow herd to a predominantly black herd with Angus and Charolais bulls and running yearlings. In addition, they are continuing Montie's tradition of improving the asset.

In 2005, Andrew Bivins, Ninia's son, joined the Management team. Together, everyone is working toward the mission statement:

In 1998, the JA gave the state of Texas the last remaining wild herd of buffalo in Texas. While we miss the buffalo, this photo shows why we had to get rid of them. Just west of the pens, you can see an open gate. Yet, the buffalo are walking through the fence.

Our JA crew heading home after branding: Dale Smith, Bob Spillers, Jay O'Brien, Josh Halsell, Jesse Vaugn, Tim Stout, Frosty Foster, foreman Steve Eytcheson, horse manager Quentin Marburger and Chris Halsell.

JA is not just cattle, horses, land or cowboys. A long history of families have made the JA. Each year hundreds of former and present employees and their families join together for the JA reunion. People who are brought up on the JA have the same attachment to the brand that those of us who today ride for the brand have.

The annual Easter egg hunt describes what JA feels is the heart of the ranch. Top left: Brooke Warren, Levi Eytcheson, Holly Warren, Trent Warren, Ashley Warren, Clayton White, Casey McKlesky, Cooper McKlesky, Rowdy Eytcheson,(against or on the wall),Wrangler Eytcheson, Rowdy Bebout, Ty Halsell, Cutter O'Neil

The JA remuda is once again producing ranch horses of unsurpassed quality. Click on Sample JA Bloodlines to see a couple of current horses. The ranch has started holding an annual horse clinic to help improve the quality.

JA also has an active hunting program. Programs are available for deer, aoudad sheep, feral hogs, quail, turkey and dove.

The porch in front of the dayroom and cook house has been a shading place for cowboys for over a century.

Red Steagall has written a poem about today's ranch crew. Red brings a crew branding every spring to help with the brand. People join him from all over the country. The common bond is a desire to be part of real ranch life and love and respect for cowboys and cowboy life. You can also see 2003's crew.

Nick Aucker's son Oscar wrote a couple of poems while living at the JA. Snapshots gives glimpses of ranch life by Amy Auker.

Click on brand to link to another ranch's information.