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.

Where credit is overdue...

 Ann Fuqua was kind enough to bring me this great old photo of Navasota's grandfather of photographers, Earl Mercer.  So I thought I would re-run some of his classic photos of Navasota life.

Earl Mercer

Recently a wonderful little treasure was shared with me. Billy Williams showed me a tiny photo souvenir album from Navasota. In 1943 Earl Mercer sent this selection of hometown shots to a serviceman and Navasota historian, named Hamer Wilson, to remind him of home. It was and still is the quintessential Navasota photospread...

We can trace our history back to when the Spanish blazed La Bahia Trail through here in 1689 in search of the interloper Rene Robert Cavalier Sieur de la Salle, the French adventurer who had claimed the whole Mississippi Valley for France and established a fort on the Texas coast. He was never aprehended because his men had mutinied and killed him and several of those loyal to him, somewhere in the area. Today Navasota is the only town in America with TWO statues of the ill-fated Frenchman who laid the groundwork for the Louisiana Purchase; One placed in 1930 by the DAR, the other a gift from the French. No other town in Texas has made so much of a tribute to the French hero, or received as much attention from the French government in the process.

Cotton was the reason. The fertile Brazos and Navasota river valleys were the home of Texas' first and most prolific plantations. Navasota was placed on the map by the H&TC Railroad in 1854 because it was ideally situated at the fork of these two rivers, to be the central gathering point for all agricultural products being produced in the heart of the farming region. From here it could be shipped to Galveston by rail. Every autumn, for one hundred years, cotton lined the streets as it awaited the market.

Cattle was no less important, and today is the area's biggest agriculutral product. These Navasota cowboys are branding a calf so that he cannot be claimed by any neighboring rancher. Blessed with good rainfall and tall, nutritious grass, the area was originally stocked with wild mustangs and longhorns, feral descendants of the livestock left behind by the Spanish Conquistatores, which soon gave way to more profitable European breeds.

Because of great geography, Navasota has always been an ideal distribution center for Texas industries. In 1943, it was the Holsum Food cannery that was the leader in bringing industry to town. Today there are TWO industrial parks, north and south of town for industrial development.

If Navasota is famous for anything, it is the area wildflowers, especially the Texas Bluebonnets, which still grace many pastures and roadsides from March through April. If Navasota has one underrated but consistent asset, it would be her young people, who always shine in the face of competition. Time after time, over decades, in sports, academics, and the arts, Navasota youth delivers way above expectations.

Thanks again to Ann and Billy for making this blog possible!

 You can see the rest of this article at my "PAGE" on the main page

called "Nava- Saga," just click on the link below.

http://russellcushman.blogspot.com/p/navasaga.html