CARROLL, JOHN ELLISON
(1862-1942)
John Ellison Carroll, champion steer roper and rodeo
pioneer, son of J.
E. and Mary Carroll, was born in San Patricio County,
In 1912 Carroll sold his shares in the ranch and moved to
His chief opponent in matched roping from 1900 through
1913 was fellow
Texan Henry Clay McGonagil, whom he
defeated for the
unofficial world's championship in a legendary three-day,
ten-steer match in
San Antonio. Carroll set a record that still stands by roping
and tying a steer
in seventeen seconds; he won $2,000. Thereafter, until he
retired from
competition around 1913, he proclaimed himself the "world's
champion steer
roper."
He issued postcards bearing this title and his picture
alongside a
"busted" steer. Thanks to his reputation as a roper Carroll also
became a Wild West-show star and performed with such notables as
Lucille Mulhall, Tom Mix, and Will
Rogers between 1900 and 1910.
Carroll married Marie Wiegand
Van Wert on
October 16, 1916. She died when their son, J. E. Carroll Jr.,
was born in 1919,
and in 1926 Carroll married Frances Wiegand
McClour. He was a Methodist and a
Democrat. He served as
sheriff of
Carroll remained interested in rodeo throughout his life.
During the
1930s he judged the
He was elected to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Rodeo
Division in
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Foghorn Clancy, My Fifty Years in Rodeo (San
Antonio:
Naylor, 1952). Beth Day,
Mary Lou LeCompte
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EATON,
(ca. 1839-ca. 1895)
Nick T. Eaton, Panhandle rancher, was born about 1839 in
This ranch covered a third of
Finch served as the first wagon boss but became an invalid
after a year
and died in 1888. He was succeeded as wagon boss by Doc Franz,
who as state
surveyor for the
Eaton was a charter member of the Panhandle Stock
Association, formed
in Mobeetie in 1880, and served
consistently on the
association's executive board. He was also on grand juries,
county commissions,
and school boards. Eaton and Henry Cresswell
became
partners about 1880 in a cattle enterprise in which they used a
Forked
Lightning brand. Their cattle grazed on Eaton's U Bar
U range until 1889, when the partners discontinued the brand,
shipped out the
cattle of that marking, and sold them.
Marvin V. Sanders, later Wheeler county sheriff, who
worked for Eaton,
told of one episode in which Doc Franz and Lengthy Sutton
discovered a band of
reservation Indians slaughtering some Forked Lightning steers
near the U Bar U headquarters.
Sutton allegedly rode eighteen miles to
In 1885 Eaton filed an injunction against Abner
P. Blocker to try to prevent him from driving the first XIT
Ranch herd across
the U Bar U rangeland to
After 1889 Eaton, who was approaching fifty, ended his
bachelorhood by
marrying in
He was known among the "cowpuncher element" as an expert
"brand man," straightforward in all his dealing. Eaton
reportedly
turned the U Bar U's registry over
to J. P. Sutton
after 1892. Some accounts related that Eaton later committed
suicide after
going broke.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of
Panhandle Pioneers
(Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945). Pauline D. and R. L.
Robertson,
Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the
H. Allen Anderson
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FRYE, HENRY
(1851-1941)
Henry Frye, rancher and
In 1874 Frye joined William J. (Bull) Miller in herding
cattle up the
trail to
In July 1877 the couple settled in
In 1879 he was among those who petitioned to organize
After the town of
Frye invested in more land and eventually divided the
original ranch
into smaller farms. He passed the Campstool brand on to his sons
Will, Tobe, and Harry, and his
daughter Nellie Puryear. Frye's
daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Frank
Young, bought back the land on the
In their later years Henry and Lula Frye moved to
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A
History of
H. Allen Anderson
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GERLACH, GEORGE
(1863-1937)
George Gerlach, early
Panhandle merchant, son
of Franz Joseph and Mary (Gilmartin)
Gerlach, was born on
In February 1885 he joined his brother, John J. Gerlach,
at his dugout on Horse Creek, seven miles north of the site of
Canadian,
In the spring of 1887 the Gerlachs
moved
their store, the first in
A year later George turned the store over to John and
opened a
lumberyard, at which he specialized in coffins. It was said that
the Gerlach brothers could "marry a
man, build his home,
furnish it, supply him with groceries, dry goods, implements,
and other
necessities of life, and when he no longer had need for them, bury him."
Gerlach
married Dora E.
Knollenberg of Jackson, Illinois, in 1890. They had four
children and lived in
Canadian, where George and his partners took over the mercantile
business after
John moved to
Their home, located on the present site of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Margaret Moody Gerlach
Papers,
H. Allen Anderson
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GERLACH, JOHN J.
(1865-1931)
John J. Gerlach, plains
pioneer, the younger
son of Franz Joseph and Mary (Gilmartin)
Gerlach, was born at Virden,
In November 1884 he erected a dugout in
Gerlach was
elected first
Hemphill county treasurer and managed the mercantile store at
Canadian, which
evolved through several partnerships, until 1893, when he made
the run into the
On
During World War I he served on the county council of
defense, the coal
commission for settling difficulties of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Margaret Moody Gerlach
Papers,
H. Allen Anderson