The Stribling Texas Legacy: Cattle & Education

Beau Best

 

A long line of Striblings was begun in Texas at the beginning of the Civil War.  Born in Tennessee, James Clayton Stribling was working as a 32 year old school teacher when he was located at La Grange, Texas by the 1860 U. S. Census. He soon married Lurana Fidelia Hudson Cunningham in 1861 in Fayette County, Texas.  A grandson of a Revolutionary War soldier by the same name, James Clayton Stribling passed his name on to his son James Clayton Stribling Jr. when he was born in Winchester, Fayette County, Texas, in the fall of 1864. Bastrop County records reveal that “Major” Stribling and his family were still residing at “Cunningham’s Prairie” in Fayette County in 1875.

Sometime around 1880 J. C. Jr. began studies at Baylor College at Independence, while Major Stribling’s brother John Beckham Stribling came to Texas with his in laws, the Fowlers not far behind. Soon J. C. Sr. and his younger brother John and the Fowlers had quite a spread near Llano, Texas. Stribling was the name, and CATTLE was the game...

A rare photo of Texas cowboys...Thanks to Marda Stribling: "The photograph was taken in "No Man's Land" of the Indian Territory and shows the "Llano Trail Drivers", 1880s. The riders (left to right) were identified by Mr. C.E.Shultz as Bill Pettet, Jim Wilson, Scrap Reed, Marion Clymer, Zan Watts, Dave Reed, Dock Ligon and John Stribling. "  Stribling was boss of the herd and, as a result of his then considered "cranky" notion that a man ought to butcher his own beef, the herd thus pictured was one of the very few if not the only one driven up the trail that provided all the steaks consumed by the accompanying riders...." It's the cover photo of the Stribling and Related Families book by Mary Frances Stribling Moursund.

Just click on the picture to view an enlargement.

While brother John’s dealings led him to relocation and ultimate disaster, Major Stribling and the Fowlers continued to prosper in a cattle enterprise that lasted over half a century.

Tommie and J. C. Stribling Jr., around 1900.

Firmly planted in Llano, J. C. Stribling Jr. grew up in the cattle business with an ambition to start a purebred Hereford herd. He became one of the pioneers of the modern cattle industry when in 1897 he started just that, with just ten purebred heifers. J. C. was married to Kathrine Tommie Long and they had five children, four which lived to maturity; Ruth, Webster Hudson (died age 18), John Benjamin and James Clayton III, born in 1902, known to present day descendants as “Pop.”

Only daughter Ruth attended Mary Hardin- Baylor all-female college in Belton before marrying into the Fowler family next door. There is no doubt J. C. was proud of his daughter Ruth, as he made a gift of $50,000.00 to her alma mater in 1920 to build a new dormitory, named after her. [My own daughter lived there while attending Mary Hardin-Baylor.  I remember thinking…  I wonder… Could it be the same as my friends in Navasota? NAW!]

But the offspring J.C. was most famous for were the calves thrown by his record-priced prize bull, Beau Best.  Many of the great Hereford bulls in the early days were from the “Beau” strain. I was actually hired to restore this painting! It was about this time that the depth of the Stribling family heritage unfolded to me. Beau Best helped build a Stribling Hereford legacy that lasted until the herd was dispersed in 1932.

Stribling Ranch cowboys around 1920... That may be J. C. III on far left.

During hard times the Stribling men fought the beef price wars with particular cunning, modifying their trade to raise free ranging hogs instead. In the spring they would round up their nearly wild swine and put them on rail cars to the meat packers, making huge profits, and a few heart attacks no doubt when these feral Hill Country monsters were sent into the unsuspecting processing plants.

 

J. C. Stribling Jr. with friends at a Texas Cattle Raiser's Convention around 1915... he is #7 on far right.

The Striblings had cattle operations all over, and were even recorded as running cattle on a lease from the Osage Nation in northern Oklahoma around the Turn of the Century. After several severe droughts in Texas the Striblings relocated their operation in the 1950’s to the Madill Ranch, nestled in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma. J. C. Jr passed away in 1954.
 

J.C. III stayed in the cattle industry all of his life, raising and marketing cattle in Central Texas and Oklahoma. His son Jim (J. C IV) grew up in ranching and told me plenty of stories of his adventures on the range. He once described how he was caught out in the open in a serious Oklahoma hail storm. Just a young man, he knew what to do, and he stripped off his saddle and slapped his horse hard, hoping he would fly home and make it to shelter… and then covered himself with the saddle as the baseball-sized ice balls began to pummel him.  This way he and the horse fared alright… although it was a long walk home afterwards. He ended up as a professor at Texas A & M, teaching Land Management. His son Jimmy Stribling (V) does tractor - dozer work and lives in Fluvanna.


There have been six J. C. Striblings in ths particular line, and I have met three of them. The last in the line, J. C. Stribling (VI!) is the oldest son of my buddy Steve Stribling and attends Navasota High School.

Today vestiges of the Stribling legacy still operate cattle ranches including the Stillwaters Ranch in Llano, Texas run by Stribling descendants, brothers Will and Clayton Leverett.