The more I hear about artificial intelligence taking over the world and running people’s minds, the more my instinct grows to revisit the past. To understand what happened around us–to dig into the characters, land and events that took place in earlier times–in my thinking is a way to link back to what we know worked, just in case we lose our way. To that end, I’ve found a great deal of historical information on the Coggin Ranch, one of the earliest and certainly one of the largest enterprises in Brown and Coleman Counties. There is so much to say about this founding ranch and the impact it had on the county that it’s best to break it into several entries.
Samuel Richardson Coggin and Moses J. Coggin of North Carolina came to Houston in 1854. According to an article from the National Livestock Historical Association, “With a capital of about $700 the brothers entered into a partnership which lasted more than forty years and brought them wealth. They engaged in freighting to north Texas, hauling salt, bacon, flour, coffee, molasses and other commodities. Each trip required a month because there were no bridges and few roads. Salt brought $10 a hundred pounds and other supplies were priced in proportion.”
“In 1856 the brothers disposed of their outfit and bought 3,000 steers. They stayed a while in Bell County, and then came to Brown County in 1857, soon thereafter establishing a herd in Coleman County. At that time there was no civilization west of Brownwood to the New Mexico border. Stiles Brothers lived four miles away and had a ranch there. Beef cattle were sold to buyers who shipped them by steamer from Shreveport, and usually brought around $15 per head for four and five-year-old steers.”
1857 is pretty early on the timeline for Brown County. It seems the Coggin brothers had their center of operations at Clear Creek, just north of Brooksmith today, but the entire area was open range, and they grazed cattle in many locations. As one colorful commentator put it, recorded in an article published in the Junior Historian in 1947, ““Well young fellar, I reckon you want to know about the cattle industry. Like I said, J. H. Fowler brought the first cattle into this country. The Coggin brothers, with their partner W. C. Parks, had cattle that ranged all over West Texas, numbering as many as twenty-four thousand at one time. Operations of the Coggins and Park firm became so large that they were almost legendary. Their total loss to Indians, it is believed, did not exceed much over three thousand. The remnant of this herd they sold to John S. Chisum in 1872.”
I like to know about these things. It makes a difference in how to see what is around us. Imagining while driving along the back roads out of Brooksmith an open range, with cowboy camps, Comanche raiders and the virtual sea of half wild cattle that must have once filled the area add perspective and color to every hill and stream. The stories of freighters are ones I like a lot as well. Imagine tramping through this brush, your ox drawn wagon filled with salt and bacon, trying to cross a swollen stream, hiding from Native American lookouts. Any given trip you made was liable to be your last. No doubt, for many it was.
It seems a miracle that these early entrepreneurs survived at all, much less succeeded in building empires out of grass and cows, but they did. The Coggin brothers not only survived, but used much of their profits to help build Brownwood itself. Life has a way of going on, moving forward, despite seemingly impossible challenges. Whatever happens in the future, with their AI ‘singularity’ looming on the horizon, the talk about how, in another 10 years, the way we live will be unrecognizable from how it is now, the past is always a roadmap for the future because it shows what can be done, despite the odds.
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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns appear Thursdays on BrownwoodNews.com. Comments regarding her columns can be emailed to [email protected].
