The Wilson "66" Ranch

It's amazing how fast time gets away from you.  I haven't posted anything here in months!  I've been busy lately doing research on the Wilson "66" ranch which was located in Archer City, Texas, and my hometown, Mannford, Oklahoma.  Here is a copy of what I've learned.

History of The Wilson “66” Ranch

The Wilson, or 66, Ranch had it’s beginnings in Archer County, Texas in about 1882 when the 099 Ranch, owned by J.H. Stone, was divided into three parcels and sold to three different people.

Before white settlers came to Archer County, the only people there were Indians from several tribes, including Apaches, Comanches, and Kiowas. The first permanent white settler was Dr. R.O. Prideaux who moved to Archer County in 1874. Dr. Prideaux was originally from England and had made scouting trips to the Archer County area before his permanent move there.

The late 1870’s saw a host of ranches spring up in the area because the grass was good and land prices were cheap. One rancher of that time bought eight sections (over 5000 acres) for a total of $14.00! By the time of the 1880 Census, 596 people lived in the county, along with 56,000 head of cattle and 1400 sheep.

The 099 Ranch consisted of 130,000 acres in the northern part of Archer County.. When it was divided, Luke Wilson purchased the western part, consisting of 61,000 acres and it became the 66 Ranch. The center section became the TL Ranch and the eastern part was purchased by the Files Cattle and Land Company.

Luke Ferrell Wilson was born in 1842 in Palestine, Illinois. His father, Isaac Newton Wilson, was a well-to-do farmer who had moved to Illinois from Virginia. In fact, the 1860 Census listed Isaac’s personal estate at $10,000 and his real estate holdings at $35,000, a huge sum in those days.

Luke was the fifth child of ten born to Isaac and his wife, Hannah Decker Wilson. All eight of the children who lived to maturity received educations and became prominent in their communities. One of his sibings, Edward S. Wilson, became a lawyer and his children would figure strongly in the 66 Ranch.

Luke’s college education has not been documented but in 1869 he married Sarah Ellen “Nell” McCrory while still living in Illinois. By 1880, he had moved to Kansas City and was working as an investment banker. In fact, he was listed as the Secretary of the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City in some documents. During the period from the 1880’s to the 1920’s, he variously listed his occupation as cattle and land dealer, office, stockman, and investments.

No documentation has been found concerning Luke Wilson’s purchase of the 66 Ranch. However, the name of the ranch came about because of the previous name, the 099. It is said that he just turned the brand over to become the 66.

After Wilson’s purchase of the ranch, Allen H. Harmer became the foreman. Cowboys working for Parmer included Milton Walker Alexander (later nicknamed “Cap” Alexander), Jim and Pie Baker, Ed, Eph, and George Brown, John McCluskey, Lee McMurtry, and several others.

The mid-1880’s were especially harsh with a blizzard-drought-blizzard series in 1885 through 1887. In fact, some ranches in the area didn’t survive this harsh series of events. The 66 Ranch did, however, and in the late 1880’s and the decade of the 1890’s it thrived.

Allen Parmer, the foreman of the Ranch, had an interesting and checkered background. He had been a member of the infamous Quantrill’s Raiders guerrilla group during the Civil War and had been wounded five times in battles. He finally surrendered to Federal authorities in July, 1865, in Kentucky.

After attending a business college for two years, Parmer married Susan James, sister of Frank and Jesse James. His association with the James brothers haunted him for years and he was arrested on several charges, including train robbery, but never convicted. However, the story is told that he was once backed down by a Mrs. F. Matthews who was wielding a shotgun. He had come to her house to run her off but she had other thoughts.

In the late 1890’s, Luke Wilson decided to take a herd of cattle into Indian Territory where they would be fattened up and shipped by rail to Kansas City. He sent Cap Alexander, along with 5000 steers, north from Archer City. In the 1900 Census, Alexander was in Indian Territory just southwest of Haskell where he listed his occupation as “cowboy”.

Milton Walker Alexander was born in Dallas County, Missouri, in 1857. He was one of five children, three boys and two girls born to James Orville Alexander and Malinda Bradford Alexander. Both of his parents were from Tennessee but had migrated to Missouri in the 1850’s. Milton’s nickname, “Cap” or “Captain” came about after his arrival in Mannford, Oklahoma. He was so called because he was the foreman or “captain” of the ranch at Mannford.

Soon after 1900, Cap Alexander arrived in Mannford with the 66 Ranch cattle. Land arrangements are unknown but it is surmised that Luke Wilson leased land from the local Indians to run his cattle on. Prior to statehood in 1907, Indian land was not available for purchase.

The ranch at Mannford is said to have stretched from Mannford on the north to Bristow on the south, a large tract indeed. The headquarters of the Ranch was located very near where Mannford City Lake’s dam is now.

In about 1906, Cap Alexander married Mary May Stephens, 24 years younger than him. She was born in 1881, the daughter of James Stephens and Mary Melinda Hall Stephens. Stephens was a local blacksmith and their family had migrated from Missouri. She was working in a laundry in Mannford and caught Cap’s eye after taking in his laundry.

Cap and May had two children, Beulah in 1907, and Tommy in 1911. The ranch headquarters house had burned down in late 1910, so they were living in Kellyville on another part of the ranch when Tommy was born. Shortly after his birth, the ranch house was rebuilt and the family returned to the Mannford area. The rebuilt house was moved into Mannford after the town was moved. It still stands there today.

In 1915, Cap Alexander bought his own small place near the site of today’s “Coyote Corner” at the intersection of State Highway 51 and Coyote Trail. Although he continued to work with the Wilson’s when needed, he was no longer the foreman. The identity of his successor is unknown.

Towns within the main ranch in Archer County included Luke Wilson (or Wilson Switch), named for the ranch’s owner. Wilson Switch consisted of cattle pens, a school, a land office, and a house which Luke Wilson had built for his nephew, Glenn, to live in. Glenn was the nephew of Edward Wilson, an attorney, and Luke’s brother. Because Luke and Nell never had children, he had chosen Glenn to be his “hands on” representative at the ranch in Archer County. Although Glenn was born in Illinois, he had moved to the ranch when he was a young man, sometime before 1910. Glenn did travel frequently to Mannford to advise and assist Cap Alexander on the operations of the ranch.

Another town which sprang up within the confines of the Wilson Ranch was the town of Geraldine. In 1901, a newspaper publisher from Indianapolis, Mr. Philander H. Fitzgerald, decided to invest in real estate “out west”. He was going to start a new colony and sell tract of land to add to his fortune. After much looking, he found the Wilson Ranch and worked out an agreement with Luke Wilson to purchase it. By 1904, however, the “ponzi” scheme had collapsed. Mr. Wilson had sold his land to Fitzgerald for $3 an acre (in cash) and bought it back for $1 per acre. Geraldine became a ghost town.

In the years of 1914-15, oil exploration came to the Wilson Ranch. Although there were no huge fields found, there was a considerable number of discoveries and Luke Wilson increased his wealth from this. Little is known about the demise of the ranch but Mr. Wilson died in early 1928 and it can be surmised that the ranch was sold off shortly after his death.

People of the Wilson Ranch

This is a short biography of some of the people who were involved with the Wilson Ranch, both in Archer County and in Mannford. Some of them have been mentioned previously. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Alexander, Milton Walker “Cap” – For several years after he left the employ of the Wilson Ranch, he did quite well with his ranch near State Highway 51 and Coyote Trail. His marriage to Mary May was tumultuous, however, and she left him sometime around 1925. She married a man by the name of Charley Griffey, from Lenepah, and they moved to the Grove area. Many years later, through DNA testing, it was discovered that Cap was not the father of their son, Tommy. Tom Porter, a cowboy on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford was his true father. Whether Cap was the father of their daughter, Beulah, is unknown. Cap lost his entire savings in the crash of 1929, and lived with his daughter, Beulah, and her husband until his death in 1935.

Alexander, Tommy Herman Milton Walker – Ironically, he was named after two of the cowboys on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford, Tom Porter (his true father) and Herman Weer. Tommy lived in the Mannford area on and off all his life and worked as a drilling rig mechanic. He died in 2004 at the age of 93.

Craven, Earl Been – Earl was a cowboy on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford but little is known about his tenure there. He was born in Missouri but lived in the Mannford area all his life. He died in 1983. Two of his grandsons, Larry and Gary, still live there today.

Henkell, David Casper “Buster” - Buster was a cowboy on the ranch at Mannford and his wife, Sarah Leanna Ihrig, was a cook. He was born in Kansas in 1889 and his family moved to the Mannford area before 1907. After Cap Alexander left the Wilson Ranch, Buster stayed with him and worked on the ranch at Keystone. He died in 1957 in Oklahoma City at the age of 68. He is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Ihrig, Ernest “Twenty” - He was born in 1892 in Tahlequah and moved to the Mannford area with his parents between 1900 and 1910. He was nicknamed “twenty” because of his short stature and because he was always seen with Cap Alexander, who always wore a .44 caliber revolver. Ernest was a brother to Sarah Leanna Ihrig, Buster Henkell’s wife, and a first cousin to Tommy Alexander. After his stint as a cowboy, he went to work in the booming oilfields as a roughneck. In about 1931, an accident on a drilling rig cost him three fingers on his right hand. In spite of this injury, he could roll a Bull Durham cigarette with two fingers better than most men with five. Ernest died in 1951 and he and his wife, Ivy, are both buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Ihrig, Sarah Leanna – Previously mentioned, “Lee” was the wife of Buster Henkell, a sister of Ernest Ihrig, and a niece of Mary May Stephens Alexander. She was born in 1902 in Mannford, the daughter of Francis Marion “Frank” Ihrig and Mahala Stephens Ihrig. Mahala, who was called “Hailie”, was a sister of Mary May Stephens Alexander, Cap Alexander’s wife. Apparently Lee and Buster co-habitated for some time before they were married because they presented themselves as sister and brother. She served as a cook for the Wilson Ranch for several years and, when Cap Alexander left to start his own spread, she went with her husband to work for him.

James, Susan Lavenia – Susan was born in Missouri in 1849 and died in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1889. She was the youngest of four children born to this family and the only girl. Two of her siblings were Alexander Franklin “Frank” James and Jesse Woodson James, the famous outlaws. She married Allen Parmer in Missouri in 1870 and shortly after that moved to the Archer City, Texas, area.

McCluskey, John B. – John, or “Uncle” John, as many people called him, was Glen Wilson’s number two man on the Wilson Ranch. Like many of the other people of the ranch, he was born in Missouri, in 1854. He would often travel with Glen Wilson to Mannford to discuss the operation of the ranch with Cap Alexander. McCluskey died in 1934 in Archer City.

McCrory, Luke Wilson – Luke was a nephew of Sarah Ellen “Nell” Wilson and was born in 1881 in Cooke County, Texas. After leaving home just after the turn of the century, he moved to Arkansas and became a banker. Sometime before 1930, he moved back to Wichita Falls and became a trustee of the Luke Wilson Estate. He figured prominently in the affairs of the estate.

McCrory, Sarah Ellen “Nell” - Nell was born in 1845 in Charleston, Illinois, very near where Luke Ferrell Wilson, her future husband lived. She was the third of seven children born to James and Mary McCrory. Like most people of that time, McCrory was a farmer. Nell married Luke in 1869 and soon after they moved to Kansas City. The couple never had children and she died in 1927 in the Kansas City area.

McMurtry, Lee – After the breakup of the 099 Ranch in 1882, McMurtry became the foreman of the Files Cattle and Land Company, one of the three offsprings of the 099. Later he went to work for Allen Parmer on the Wilson 66 Ranch. There were many McMurtry’s around the Archer City area and details about Lee are sketchy. One of Archer City’s most prominent natives was Larry McMurtry, a well-known writer and movie producer.

Parmer, Allen Hazard – Allen Parmer was born in 1848 in Missouri and, after his stint as a member of Quantrill’s Raiders during the Civil War, moved to Clay County, Texas, the county joining Archer County on the east. By 1889 he had quit working for the Wilson Ranch and had gone into farming for himself. In 1905, he gave up farming and went into the railroad construction business. He retired in 1920 and died in Wichita Falls in 1927.

Peacock, Curtis Eugene - Born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, his family moved to Mannford before 1910. His tenure at the Wilson Ranch is unknown but probably was in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s. He and his wife had five children and he died in 1987. He is interred, along with his wife, at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Porter, Thomas Perry Sr. - Tom Perry was born in Austin, Texas in 1888. When he was 13 and living with his family in the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory, he ran away from home to escape an abusive father. He came to Keystone, Oklahoma, and was taken in by a Zickefoose family, who enrolled him in Keystone School in the fourth grade. In his late teens, he went to work as a cowboy for Cap Alexander on the Wilson Ranch. In 1910, he apparently had a tryst with Cap Alexander’s wife, May, and the result of this was Tommy Alexander. In later years, Tommy stated that he was named after Tom Porter and Herman Weer, two cowboys on the Wilson Ranch. Sometime after 1910, Tom Porter moved to Archer County and was a cowboy on the Wilson Ranch there. By 1920, he had married and left the Ranch. He worked at several other ranches before opening a tack and saddle shop in Seymour, Texas. He died there in 1974.

Stephens, Mary May – May was born in 1881 and her first marriage was to Joseph Henry Pendergraft. Two children resulted from this marriage, Gertha and Clarence. Mr. Pendergraft died in 1902. Both children were born in Missouri but shortly after Clarence’s birth, the family moved to Mannford where May’s sister, Mahala, was living. Gertha later married Arthur Bellis, the oldest son of Bill and Charity Bellis. May met Cap Alexander, they married and lived in Mannford for several years. She eventually divorced Cap and married a man from Lenapah, Charley Griffey. They moved to the Grove area for several years. For some reason, this marriage didn’t work either and May returned to the Mannford area, taking her Alexander name back. She died in Bristow in 1967 and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Weer, John Herman – Herman was born in 1887 in Labette, Kansas. His parents had moved there from Indiana. Before his 10^th birthday the family had moved to Muskogee, Indian Territory. In 1896, his father, John Emmett Weer, went to court in Muskogee to get the members of the family put on the Creek Nation rolls. This effort failed. John Emmett was a store owner and at one point there was a settlement east of Bixby and south of Broken Arrow by the name of Weer. In 1917, when Herman registered for the draft, he was living in Mannford. He listed his employer as L.F. Wilson and place of employment as the Wilson Ranch. Before 1920, Luke Wilson asked him to go to Archer City and manage the dairy that the ranch was then starting. He did move there and lived in Archer City as late as 1942. Herman Weer died in Collinsville, Oklahoma in 1978 at the age of 91.

Wilson, Glenn Sylvester – Glenn was the son of Edward Wilson, Luke Wilson’s brother, and the on site family representative to the Wilson Ranch. He was born in 1872 in Illinois and married Dora Eckenrode there. Sometime before 1910, they moved to Archer County when he went to work for Luke Wilson. Glenn and John McCluskey would often travel to Mannford to confer with Cap Alexander. After Luke Wilson’s death and the demise of the ranch, Glenn moved back to Illinois and bought a farm. He died in 1938 in St. Louis.

Wilson, Luke Ferrell – Little remains to be said about him. He was obviously a very successful business man and those who knew and worked for him were quick to offer praises for his compassion and understanding. He died on May 17, 1928, and is interred in Charleston, Illinois, his hometown.