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Texas rancher and traildriver born in Mississippi
On this day in 1836, Robert Kelsey Wylie was born in Tishomingo County,
Mississippi. After moving to Anderson County, Texas, with his parents
around 1850, he worked building brick chimneys, labor for which he
accepted cattle as payment. With his brothers he started a ranch in
Erath County and, in 1862, helped formed Picketville, at the site of the
future Ballinger, in Runnels County. He ranched in Coleman County during
the Civil War. In 1865 he began driving cattle to Fort Sumner, New
Mexico, a business he continued for ten years. He established cattle
ranches near Ballinger and at Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. He
also started a sheep ranch near Van Horn. At various times he supplied
cattle to John S. Chisum and to the foundation herd of the Matador
Ranch. He retired to Mineral Wells by 1905 and died on July 11, 1910,
after falling off the back of a Pullman car near Trinidad, Colorado.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- WYLIE, ROBERT KELSEY
- CATTLE TRAILING
- RANCHING
- SHEEP RANCHING
- MATADOR RANCH
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Rudder's Rangers fight with distinction on Normandy beaches (1944)
- Texas Centennial Exposition opens (1936)
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