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Ranching Catalogue Part 1 (Authors A-C)

Items 851-875

The items in this catalogue have been sold. This catalogue was issued in print form in 2002, and is presented in full on our website as a courtesy to users and for reference purposes.

851. CASEY, Robert J. The Texas Border and Some Borderliners: A Chronicle and a Guide. Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, [1950]. [4] 440 pp., frontispiece, photographs, photographic plates, endpaper maps, back pocket containing 35 pp. booklet The Guide (list of current area attractions). 8vo, original terracotta cloth. Spine a bit faded, minor shelf wear, otherwise fine.
First edition, limited “Lone Star” issue (special leaf signed by author tipped in). Adams, Burs I:73. Campbell, p. 171. Dykes, Kid 414. Guns 392: “Takes in some large territory and covers practically all the outlaws in the Southwest, including those involved in the Lincoln County War.” Herd 429. History of the Texas border, with emphasis on battles and bad men (Sam Bass, Salt War, etc.); also some mention of King Ranch and other ranching topics. The author opens his history with this 1910 quotation by Joe Bailey of the Houston Post: “The Texas border is about a thousand miles long, counting detours, and it’s just as wide as anybody who owns a cow over there thinks it is.” $55.00

852. CASEY, Robert J. The Texas Border and Some Borderliners.... Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, [1950]. 440 pp., frontispiece, photographs, photographic plates, endpaper maps, back pocket containing 35 pp. booklet The Guide. 8vo, original terracotta cloth. Very fine in very fine d.j.
First trade edition. $40.00

853. CASTLEMAN, Harvey N. Sam Bass, the Train Robber: The Life of Texas’ Most Popular Bandit. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1944. 24 pp. 12mo, original white printed wrappers. Text browned due to the cheap paper on which the pamphlet is printed, otherwise very fine, wrappers very fresh.
First edition. Guns 396: “A fairly accurate account.” This little biography indicates that disillusionment with his life as a cowboy led Sam Bass to a life of crime. $30.00

854. CASTLEMAN, Harvey N. The Texas Rangers: The Story of an Organization That Is Unique, Like Nothing Else in America. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1944. 24 pp. 12mo, original white printed wrappers. Text browned due to the cheap paper on which the pamphlet is printed, otherwise very fine, wrappers very fresh.
First edition. Guns 397. A brief hero-worship history of the Rangers in which the author acknowledges his reliance on Walter Prescott Webb. Cattle industry interest is in the material after the Civil War: McNelly’s Rangers on the border chasing Mexican rustlers and the gringo rustlers disguised as Mexicans (1875); recovery of a herd of cattle stolen by King Fisher (1876); Ranger George W. Arrington’s routing of outlaws and cattle thieves in the first Ranger station established in the Panhandle in the 1880s (cattleman Charles Goodnight threatened to recruit a private army of his own since he did not trust the Feds to protect Panhandle cattlemen against Native American and Anglo cattle rustlers); Rangers in the Fence-Cutter Wars (1884). $20.00

855. CATES, Cliff D. Pioneer History of Wise County: From Red Men to Railroads; Twenty Years of Intrepid History, Compiled under the Auspices of the Wise County Settlers’ Association. Decatur, Texas [St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing], 1907. 471 pp., frontispiece portrait, plates, portraits, ads. 8vo, original dark green cloth. Binding dull, hinges cracked and covers loose, first few leaves detached and with marginal chipping.
First edition. CBC 4854. Dykes, Western High Spots, p. 118 (“Ranger Reading”): “Local history that I can recommend for [its] readability.” Herd 431: “Rare.” Howes C238. Rader 627. Tate, Indians of Texas 2358: “Includes numerous accounts of Indian raids in this North Texas county, some as told by pioneer residents. Also includes a full chapter on the Delaware Indians in Texas and Oklahoma.” Vandale 31. The section on “Cattle and Hogs and Conditions” gives some early ranching history. Includes biographies and family histories (many with photographs) of pioneer ranchers. Good coverage of women. $475.00

856. CATHEY, Viola. Pancake Memories. [Copperas Cove: Published by the author at Freeman Printing, 1977]. [6] 100 pp., frontispiece, text illustrations (portraits, photographic illustrations, facsimiles). 8vo, original beige printed wrappers. Fine, with related newsclippings laid in. Privately printed and very scarce.
First edition. This history of the tiny farming and ranching community of Pancake (Coryell County, Texas) includes a biography of John Russell Pancake, namesake of the town. Pancake came to Texas in 1858 and purchased a tract of 1,476 acres on the Hamilton-Coryell county line where he commenced stockraising. Pancake was one of the first ranchers to fence his land, and by the time of his death in 1888, he had increased his holdings to 8,000 acres, making it one of the finest ranches in the area and the gathering point for the ranchers of Coryell, Hamilton, and Bosque Counties. Pancake contracted with northern cattle dealers and drove large herds to Kansas. Other ranches and their owners are discussed. $45.00

857. The Cattleman 4:8. Fort Worth: Cattle Raisers Association of Texas, January 1918. 55 [1] pp., illustrations, ads. 8vo, original photographic wrappers. Spine chipping and a few old tape repairs, staples rusting, wrappers lightly stained and foxed, internally fine.
First printing. Contains expected cattle content on tick eradication, velvet beans as feed, “The Importance of Roughage,” Billie Whiteside and his baby beeves, numerous ads (such as one for Mollie D. Abernathy & Sons’ Swastika Ranch in Lubbock illustrating their swastika brand), etc. However, the best article in this issue is Jason W. James’s “Over the Trail in 1858: From Kansas to Utah with an Ox Train” in which James gives a firsthand account of signing on with ex-Confederate General Joe O. Shelby to carry 6,000-7,000 pounds of freight in thirty wagons to Salt Lake City to supply General Harney’s army to punish the Mormons for the Mountain Meadow Massacre. $35.00

858. The Cattleman 22:10. Fort Worth: Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, March 1936. 112 pp., illustrations, ads. 4to, original full-color pictorial wrappers with Texas Centennial theme evoking the evolution of the cattle trade in Texas (six flags fly over of a map of Texas with an old longhorn on one side of the map and a well-bred Hereford on the other). Fine.
First printing. Good content, including John M. Hendrix’s “Bronk Busters Paid Top Wages” with Erwin E. Smith photographs at the LS Ranch and Matador Land and Cattle Company. An article on “Scrappy Bovines” has a photo by W. D. Smithers, and Denver cowboy W. W. Thompson’s article “A Day’s Work” has a photo by Erwin E. Smith. C. L. Douglas’s “Cattle Kings of Texas” explains how the King Ranch served as a buffer between the U.S. and Mexico. $25.00

859. The Cattleman 30:4. Fort Worth: Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, September 1943. 184 pp., illustrations, ads. 4to, original photographic wrappers. Light edge wear and creasing to front wrapper, otherwise fine.
First printing. Dobie, p. 132: “This monthly magazine of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association began in 1939 to issue, for September, a horse number. It has published a vast amount of material both scientific and popular on range horses.” This issue, the fifth annual Horse issue, includes Frank Reeves’s “Cowboys and Their Horses,” Florence Fenley’s “Cow Horse-Sense and Camp-Cow Doings,” Hazel Oatman Bowman’s “Mrs. W. C. Wallace: Horsewoman of the Early Twentieth Century,” John M. Hendrix’s “Quanah Parker, Chief of the Comanches, Rode a Palomino,” and much more. $20.00

860. The Cattleman 36:5. Fort Worth: Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, October 1949. 144 pp., illustrations, ads. 4to, original full-color pictorial wrappers with illustration by Tom Lea. Fine.
First printing. Includes “Kansas Grass Cattle” by Frank Reeves, and an article on windmills, “Water from the Wind” by Joe M. Carmichael. $20.00

861. CAUGHEY, John Walton. Gold Is the Cornerstone. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948. xvi, 321 pp., plates (from vintage prints, plus one by J. Goldsborough Bruff), vignettes by W. R. Cameron. 8vo, original red pictorial cloth. Fine in fine d.j.
First edition. Dobie, p. 144. Rocq 15747. Mentions the undocumented era of cattle and sheep drives into California catering to the miners (specifically citing Isaac J. Wistar, one of the importers from Oregon) and the effect of the Gold Rush on the rancheros of southern California. “The rancheros...accustomed to raising cattle for hides and tallow, enjoyed a fabulous boom when a market opened for beef. Few realized a dollar a pound, and not for long, but the price leveled off at several times the figure of the hide-and-tallow days.... Sometimes the rancheros staged their own drives.... Henry Miller did not become a Swift, an Armour, or a Cudahy, but, with his abattoirs and outlets in San Francisco and his ranches spread from the Mexico border into Nevada and Oregon, he was, without exaggeration, the Cattle King” (pp. 209-10). $55.00

862. CAVE-BROWNE-CAVE, Genille. From Cowboy to Pulpit. London: Herbert Jenkins Limited, 1926. 312 [8, ads] pp., frontispiece portrait, photographic plates. 8vo, original green cloth. Light shelf wear and foxing (especially adjacent to plates), generally very good. Rare in commerce.
First edition. Herd 442: “Chapters on ranching and punching cows. Experiences of an Englishman who came to America and eventually became a minister.” The English author (b. 1869), while still a green youth, left home to join the circus and then signed on to be a sailor on a ship bound for South Australia, where he went to work in a rabbit extermination camp. His life changed forever when he met Mexican Joe, a famous entrepreneur of a Wild West Show, and saw a cowboy for the first time. “Every minute I could spend away from the regiment was spent with Mexican Joe and his lads from the far Western ranches, and all my early ideas of the West, where I was to spend such a big slice of my life, were gathered from the men I met there and talked to at their work.... That definitely settled it—a cowboy’s life was the life for me.” The author gives a splendid, entertaining description of ranch life and how he gained respect by developing “the most uncanny skill with the lariat, beating everybody on our own and neighboring ranches.” After a brief stint at intercepting opium smugglers in Bombay, our hero’s cowboy adventures continued in Texas, Colorado, Mexico, the Circle Dot Ranch, Utah, Wyoming, and New York (where he acted in the movies and worked as a stand-in for cowgirl actresses, wearing women’s clothing while filming dangerous stunt shots involving roping, riding, and shooting). That New York gig brought an end to the author’s escapades. A pretty Salvation Army lassie converted him and he became a minister, finally returning to England, marrying, and becoming a respectable man of the cloth. $600.00

Item 862

863. CAZNEAU, [Jane M. McManus Storms]. Eagle Pass; or, Life on the Border by Mrs. William L. Cazneau (Cora Montgomery). Austin: Pemberton Press, 1966. [10] 194 pp., endpaper maps. 8vo, original green cloth. Very fine in fine d.j.
Limited edition (500 copies); facsimile of the first edition (New York 1852), with added introduction and index. Graff 2873n. Hanna, Yale Exhibit: “More than an account of life in Texas in the 1840s and 50s. It is, in general, a plea for just and humanitarian treatment of all people, and, in particular, a stinging indictment of the abominable treatment of the Indian and the Black in America.” Howes C251n. Raines, p. 252n. Tate, Indians of Texas 2466n: “Discusses the continuous Indian raids along the southern Texas border during the early 1850s, and describes the Seminoles who had recently settled along the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.” Wallace (Destiny and Glory, chapter 12) states that the author “was the most adventurous of any American woman on record and deserves far more than the oblivion which has been her fate.” See The Handbook of Texas Online: Jane Maria Eliza McManus Cazneau. Notable American Women I:315-16. An important record of life along the recently acquired Rio Grande frontier by one of the first settlers of Eagle Pass, Texas. Ranching content includes a description of the wretched working conditions of vaqueros and peons on the vast haciendas in Mexico (as described by Severo Valdez, a vaquero who had left Mexico to work as a ranch hand for Col. Henry Lawrence Kinney in Corpus Christi); prospects for stockraising in Texas (“the prairies swarm with fine cattle, and where cows may be had at seven or eight dollars a head, and can rout out and take care of themselves the whole year”); cattle rustling and horse thievery on the border by Mexicans and Native Americans. $50.00

864. CÉLIZ, Francisco. Diary of the Alarcón Expedition into Texas, 1718-1719. Translated by Fritz Leo Hoffman. Los Angeles: Quivira Society, 1935. [12] 124 pp., plates (mostly sepia-tone photographs), maps (one foldout). 8vo, original white cloth over rose boards. Fine, mostly unopened, in publisher’s original glassine dust wrapper (slightly tattered).
First edition, limited edition (#392 of 600 copies). Quivira Society Publications 5. Basic Texas Books 29: “Records the founding of the town of San Antonio and the mission of the Alamo.” Campbell, p. 173. Clark, Old South I:13. Howes C254. Tate, Indians of Texas 1708: “A valuable description of all the tribes contacted during a march from Mission San Juan Bautista to Los Adaes, Louisiana. Researchers interested in the tribes, as well as the mission system, should consult this highly descriptive source.” When thinking of cattle drives and overland expeditions in the West, it is sometimes overlooked that some of the most remarkable examples of this type of trail-blazing occurred in the Spanish era. The purpose of the Alarcón expedition was to strengthen and extend Spanish presence in Texas, to re-supply the missions already established in East Texas, and to found new missions in the San Antonio-San Marcos area. The party, consisting of 72 persons (with 10 families), marched and rode overland with numerous tools and supplies and a large herd of domestic animals (numerous cattle, 6 droves of mules, 548 horses, sheep, and chickens). In May 1718 at what is probably present San Marcos, the party sighted a black Castilian bull and realized that the animal tracks they had assumed to be bison were actually those of the cattle that Alonso de León had left during his first trip to Texas (1686). In September 1718, after constructing the villa of Béxar (destined to become the most important town in Spanish Texas), Céliz records that Governor Alarcón presented the village with sixty head of cattle; in January 1719, after building San Antonio de Valero, additional cattle, sheep, and other livestock were ordered to be supplied to the new mission. $275.00

865. CENDRARS, Blaise. Sutter’s Gold. Translated...by Henry Longan Stuart. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1926. [14] 179 pp., woodcut designs by Harry Cimino. 8vo, original three-quarter black cloth over gold boards in worn, price-clipped pictorial d.j. Light shelf wear, moderate discoloration to covers, color frontispiece and decorated title detached, interior bright and clean. Contemporary ink ownership inscription of W. V. Casey.
First edition. Dobie, p. 144. Rocq 6661. Author describes mission livestock operations and Sutter’s grandiose ranch. $20.00

866. CHABOT, Frederick C. San Antonio and Its Beginnings: Comprising the Four Numbers of the San Antonio Series with Appendix. San Antonio: Artes Gráficas Printing Company, 1936. 99 pp., frontispiece, text illustrations (some photographic), plans. 8vo, original brown pictorial wrappers. Text browned, remains of bookplate inside back wrapper.
Second edition. CBC 304n. Rader 646. Tate, Indians of Texas 1709. San Antonio history from 1691 to 1731. Includes information on ranching at San José Mission in the late 1700s and statistics on mission herds. $40.00

867. CHABOT, Frederick C. With the Makers of San Antonio: Genealogies of the Early Latin, Anglo-American, and German Families with Occasional Biographies, Each Group Being Prefaced with a Brief Historical Sketch and Illustrations.... San Antonio: Privately Published [printed by Artes Gráficas], 1937. [10] 412 pp., frontispiece, plates (photogravures, including some after Gentilz paintings), text illustrations. Thick 8vo, original brown textured cloth. Slight shelf wear, otherwise very fine.
First edition, trade issue (a limited edition of 25 autographed copies came out at the same time). Basic Texas Books 222:IV: “Noteworthy source book on early families and prominent Texans of the San Antonio region, with extensive quotations of original documents. The volume has a research value in many areas beyond the area of San Antonio.” Cumberland, United States–Mexican Border, p. 112. Not in CBC. This work includes family histories of the earliest Spanish ranchers in the San Antonio region, along with histories of their grants. One of the illustrations is a 1778 list of cattle brands in the Béxar Archives. Among the portraits is a handsome photogravure of Samuel A. Maverick (1803-1870), noted early Texan and pioneer cattle and land baron. “Maverick...left a small herd of cattle originally purchased in 1847 on Matagorda Peninsula with slave caretakers. It was this herd that was allowed to wander and gave rise to the term maverick, which denotes an unbranded calf. In 1854 Maverick and his two eldest sons rounded up the cattle and drove them to their Conquista Ranch near the site of present Floresville before selling them in 1856. During the years between Maverick’s return to San Antonio and his death, he expanded his West Texas landholdings, which in 1851 totaled almost 140,000 acres. By 1864 they had burgeoned to more than 278,000 acres, and at his death they topped 300,000 acres.”—The Handbook of Texas Online: Samuel Augustus Maverick. $410.00

868. CHAFFIN, Lorah B. Sons of the West: Biographical Account of Early-Day Wyoming. Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1941. 284 pp., photographic plates. 8vo, original tan cloth. Very fine in price-clipped d.j. with light wear and chip at lower margin of front panel (approximately 1.3 x 5 cm). Signed by author on front free endpaper, “Cordially Yours, Lorah B. Chaffin.” Above author’s presentation is a contemporary gift inscription: “With Best Wishes for the Christmas time and the coming year to Count and Countess Thorn(?) Rider from their friends Mr. and Mrs. J. Gatchell.” Below author’s presentation is a the ownership inscription of Edith W. Blunk of Denver dated in 1941.
First edition. Guns 403. Herd 443: “Chapters on the cattle industry of Wyoming and touches upon the Johnson County War.” Malone, Wyomingana, p. 17: “Bits of information about leaders in Wyoming from early explorers to Senator O’Mahoney.... Livestock raising and rodeos.” Smith 1604. $110.00

869. CHAFFIN, Lorah B. Sons of the West.... Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1941. Another copy, variant binding. 8vo, original terracotta cloth. Very fine in very good d.j. (lightly worn and chipped; price-clipped). $80.00

870. CHALFANT, W. A. Death Valley, the Facts. Stanford, London & Oxford: Stanford University Press, 1930. ix [1] 155 pp., photographic plates, endpaper maps. 8vo, original orange and black pictorial cloth. Lower corners bumped, otherwise very fine.
First edition. Edwards, Desert Harvest 8: “Many great and enduring books have been written of this desert; but, to me, there are two of them that stand alone, distinctive and invulnerable. One of these is the Manly; the other, Chalfant’s Death Valley”; Enduring Desert, pp. 45-46: “The recognized handbook of Death Valley and, as such, assembles a veritable treasure-trove of informative material. Its content features the Valley’s geography, history, climatology, water, plants, animals, geology, mining, borax, novelties, perils, and man-made improvements. An essential item in any desert collection.” Paher, Nevada 306. Rocq 2289. Furnace Creek Ranch is discussed and illustrated: “The place would not be notable in a more favored region, but in widespread desolation and below sea-level, it is unique. Its fertile loam responds generously to cultivation.... A hundred acres of the ranch were fenced, and some forty acres have been used for alfalfa raising. The hay, cut four times a year, was fed to high-grade cattle, providing the beef supply for the one hundred and twenty-five men working at Ryan and the two hundred and fifty at Death Valley Junction” (p. 140). The author also mentions Steininger’s Ranch (later acquired by the mysterious Walter Scott, sometime cowboy and champion rough rider in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show) and San Francisquito Ranch. $40.00

871. CHALFANT, W. A. Outposts of Civilization. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, [1928]. 193 pp. 8vo, original maroon ribbed cloth. Fine.
First edition. Cowan, p. 112. Edwards, Enduring Desert, p. 45: “Scarce, important, and a worthy addition to any desert collection.” Guns 405. Howes C260. Paher, Nevada 308: “Vigilantes, early day transportation, mining camps, Nevada-California boundary dispute, Knights of the Road (Wells Fargo), millionaires and stock promotion excitement.” Rocq 15749. The chapter on “The Bandits of California” discusses pre-Gold Rush banditti, such as Andreas Armijo and Thomas Maria Carrillo, alleged leaders of cattle-rustling and horse-stealing gangs. The author tells how the Gold Rush upset the balance of power in California, revolutionizing the old ranchos in a single season (pp. 137-38, “The Bandits of California”): “There were few uses for the plains and rolling hills other than as pastures for wild cattle, slaughtered for hides and tallow, their carcasses left for the buzzards. Idyllic conditions no longer held sway.... A few occasional days of toil at cattle round-ups no longer sufficed to provide a living, and many who had so existed were ready to turn to banditry as an easy alternative.... The term ‘Greaser,’ originally applied to the American and English buyers of hides and tallow, became an opprobrious designation for those of Spanish descent, native-born, Mexican, Chilean and Peruvian.” Chalfant includes information on post-Gold Rush outlaws, including Texan John Irving (his gang stole $15,000 in gold and 900 horses from a San Joaquin Valley rancho in 1851) and much on Joaquin Murieta (“the grand duke of bandit ignobility” whose chief business became stock rustling from ranches). $110.00

872. CHALFANT, W. A. The Story of Inyo. [Chicago]: Published by the Author [at Hammond Press], 1922. xviii, 358 pp., foldout map, errata on lower pastedown. 8vo, original maroon cloth. Light shelf wear, otherwise very fine. Bookplate of scholar Margaret Long on front pastedown; lower pastedown with printed label of Paul Elder, noted San Francisco bookseller and proprietor of the arts and crafts Tomoyé Press.
First edition. Cowan, p. 112. Edwards, Enduring Desert, p. 45. Guns 406: “Scarce.” Herd 444: “Has a chapter on ‘The Coming of the Stockmen.’” Howes C261: “Best history of the California region east of the Sierras, the Owens Valley and Death Valley.” Paher, Nevada 309n (citing the second edition): “Exploration, geological facts, desert camps, pioneer settlements, Indian fights, bad men and transportation.” Rocq 2227. $110.00

873. CHALFANT, W. A. The Story of Inyo. [Chicago]: Published by the Author [at Hammond Press], 1922. Another copy. Binding worn and stained. $70.00

874. CHAMBERLAIN, Hiram. My Dear Henrietta: Hiram Chamberlain’s Letters to His Daughter, 1846-1866. Kingsville: [Designed and printed by W. Thomas Taylor for] King Ranch, Inc., 1993. 103 [3] pp., 4 plates (photographic). 8vo, original grey pictorial wrappers. Mint.
First edition, limited edition (400 copies). Handsomely printed by W. Thomas Taylor; edited and annotated with introduction and commentary by Bruce Cheeseman. Chamberlain’s daughter, Henrietta, married Richard King and helped him to build his fledgling rancho on the banks of the Santa Gertrudis Creek into a 614,000-acre ranching empire, which he bequeathed solely to her upon his death. Under her management, the King Ranch prospered and grew. $140.00

875. CHAMBERLAIN, Newell D. The Call of Gold: True Tales on the Gold Road to Yosemite. [Mariposa: Gazette Press, 1936]. xii [2] 183 pp., frontispiece, plates (mostly photographic), maps, facsimile. 8vo, original tan cloth. Light shelf wear, otherwise fine in torn and chipped d.j. (price-clipped). Ink inscription “Redmond” on blank flyleaf.
First edition. Guns 407. Rocq 5099. This book contains peripheral information of interest for ranching history, particularly several chapters on Frémont’s 44,000-acre Mariposa grant, which was challenged on the basis that the grant was originally made to Alvarado for grazing and agricultural purposes and thus did not convey mineral rights. Some mention is made of Frémont’s successful bid for supplying several thousand head of cattle to the U.S. government. $70.00