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Fence-cutting war reaches Mabel Day's ranch
On this day in 1883, free-grass cattle raisers began cutting the fences
of Mabel Doss Day's ranch, the first fully fenced large ranch in Texas.
She inherited the 85,000-acre, debt-ridden spread in Coleman County when
her husband of 2 1/2 years, William H. Day, died from injuries received
when his horse fell during a stampede. With the absence of any laws
governing building or cutting fences, free-grass cattle raisers, long
accustomed to an open range, responded to the summer drought by cutting
the fences of the ranchers who had bought and fenced their land. Mabel
Day responded to this threat to her ranch by lobbying in Austin for a
law making fence cutting a felony; the law was passed in 1884. The
fence-cutting war subsided, leaving her with miles of fence to repair.
Even after her second marriage, she continued to own and operate the
ranch and reduce her debt until, at her death in 1906, she was able to
leave a debt-free portion of the ranch to her daughter.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- LEA, MABEL DOSS
- FENCE CUTTING
- RANCHING
- LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY TEXAS
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Philanthropist Alexander Sanger dies (1925)
- Abolitionist minister lynched in Fort Worth (1860)
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