Not Just Horsin' Around
Denton County, Texas, is building a top flight horse industry.
By: Mark Boardman 08/01/2007
No one would call this Texas robber a criminal mastermind, despite the legend that often trails his name.
One stagecoach holdup netted about $38, while the take from an 1878 train robbery totaled just over $600. Hell, the robber didn’t even lead the infamous 1877 raid on a Union Pacific train in Nebraska, which garnered more than $60,000. His freighting partner, Joel Collins, actually did; but since it is still the single largest robbery of the Union Pacific, it makes sense that it launched the 26-year-old Sam Bass to fame.
Sam did have an eye for horseflesh though, especially horseflesh that ran fast. He proved the point in the fall of 1874.
Bass was living near the town of Denton, about 35 miles north of Fort Worth, working odd jobs here and there. He also owned four horses, perhaps for use in some freighting work. Sam got interested in “scrub races,” one-on-one horse sprints over improvised quarter mile, straight-ahead tracks. These social affairs were well-attended, attracting dozens of onlookers—and plenty of betting money. Bass wanted a piece of the action. He spotted a two-year-old gray mare named Jennie, a speedy animal bred in the Denton area, and quickly bought her. With the skinny black jockey Charlie Tucker aboard, Jennie began winning races.
In fact, the Bass stable was doing so well that Sam began taking Jennie across Texas. Folks started calling her the “Denton Mare.” Even today, she is one of the best-known horses in North Texas history.
That says a lot. For the Denton County horse industry was up and running long before Sam Bass came around (and long after he was gone).
A History of Horses
Cattle ranches dominated the scene in Denton as far back as the 1850s. Ranchers needed horses, of course, so they either had to buy them from somebody else or grow their own, as it were. John Chisum—who later became famous for his role in New Mexico’s Lincoln County War—was one of the top ranchers just prior to the Civil War. By 1860, he claimed about 6,000 of the 20,000 cattle in Denton County, and he bred his own Spanish cow ponies to help run the herd. His neighbor William Wright went a step further—he bought some Spanish mares in Mexico and started the first horse ranch in north Texas.
The Civil War disrupted Denton during the 1860s. The livestock operations struggled as many animals went toward the Confederate war effort. Men like Chisum moved farther west, to New Mexico and Arizona. The cattle industry did a free fall; by 1920, only about 12,000 head remained in the county. The region’s economy fell back on agriculture—cotton, wheat, even some peanuts. In the 1960s, the town of Denton grew as a bedroom suburb to the metroplex of Dallas/Fort Worth.
Yet Denton’s past was about to come charging forward.
Come the Horsemen
In the early 1970s, a handful of horsemen saw the possibilities in Denton County. Its soil composition is a sandy loam, which allows quick absorption and runoff of water—standing water can cause physical problems and illness for horses. The climate is favorable, with January lows averaging 34 degrees and the average July highs hitting the mid-90s. And north Texas land is a lot cheaper than the bluegrass of Kentucky, making it attractive to folks with limited budgets. So when traditional farms started struggling in the 1970s—many went under, while others were forced to sell for whatever they could get—ranchers picked up large tracts at bargain-basement prices.
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