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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	JA RANCH Texas
Location: Armstrong County, Palo Duro Canyon, Paloduro. History of the JA Ranch

Ownership and Administration. Privately owned.

Significance. In 1876, only a year after the Kiowas and Comanches had been forced onto a reservation, Charles Goodnight became the first of many cattlemen to bring herds onto the Llano Estacado, the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. The first Goodnight spread—the Old Home Ranch—was located in Palo Duro Canyon a few miles below the site of Col. R. S. Mackenzie's battle with the Comanches in 1874. It consisted of corrals and picket houses built from timber cut in the canyon. In 1877 Goodnight formed a partnership with John G. Adair, an Irish country gentleman whose penchant for hunting had attracted him to the buffalo plains. With Adair furnishing financial backing and Goodnight managing the spread, the JA began a long and profitable history.

Ranchhouse of the JA Ranch, Texas. Though renovated in modern times, it probably dates from the 1890's.

In 1879 Goodnight moved the ranch headquarters to Turkey Creek, farther east, to be closer to the railroad. There he built new ranch and residential buildings of logs; later he built a stone house for the Adairs to live in when at the ranch. Under Goodnight's management, the JA grew to encompass 700,000 acres and 40,000 head of cattle. An advocate of herd improvement, Goodnight developed outstanding cattle by mixing Herefords and Longhorns, and he also built up a large herd of domesticated buffalo. In 1880 he helped found the Panhandle Stockmen's Association. Foreseeing the end of the open range, in 1889 he ended his association with Adair and the JA Ranch and settled on a smaller ranch of his own, whose headquarters was at the village of Goodnight.

Bunkhouse at the JA Ranch, Texas. Charles Goodnight founded the ranch in 1876 and the next year went into partnership with John G. Adair.

Present Appearance. Of the three sites associated with Goodnight in the Texas Panhandle, the JA Ranch headquarters probably best commemorates his activities and contributions to the cattle industry. Located in a wide section of the Palo Duro Canyon, the ranch is still a large and active concern, owned by Mrs. Adair's surviving grandson by her marriage to Montgomery Ritchie. Some of the original buildings, erected in 1879, are still standing. The big house built for the Adairs, now modernized and expanded, still dominates the cluster of buildings at the ranch headquarters. Although changed by the addition of new buildings and the improvement of the old, the ranch still possesses the essential flavor of the original, and the vast areas of surrounding rangelands remain as they were in Goodnight's day.

Surviving early stable buildings at the JA Ranch, Texas.

Two related sites of importance are nearby. The original Goodnight ranch headquarters—the Old Home Ranch—is farther up the canyon at a site not easily reached. The buildings burned in 1904, but the foundations are still visible. The Panhandle-Plains Historical Society of Canyon, Tex., has marked the site. The frame-house where Goodnight lived from 1889 until his death in 1929 is still standing in the nearby town of Goodnight, and is used as a private residence. [24]

NHL Designation: 12/19/60