hillsdown":27r21aar said:
I am trying to remember what the Ewings(sp?) raised for cattle, I think they were LH's.
"By the fall of 1860, Southfork Ranch was well on its way as the leader of the territory. The first thousand head of Southworth Texas longhorns were driven north to market on the new Chisholm Trail"
This was when Miss Ellie's grandfather, Enoch Southworth, the founder of Southfork Ranch owned and operated the enterprise.
"Young Aaron's acceptance of new ranching ideas, integrating them compatibly with the old ways, brought even greater prosperity to Southfork. In the late 1880s, when the cattle trails to markets were more easily traveled, when the trains were more efficiently shipping beef to the north and east, he was responsible for Southfork's being one of the first ranches to raise less-tough, fatter cattle and slowly diminish their number of longhorns. "Daddy," he explained, "for every one of 'em with those eight-feet horns, I can git three Herefords on the boxcar." More revenues poured into the Southfork chest."
Aaron was the son and only child of Enoch Southworth and future father of Miss Ellie.
"For Ellie it was a magical place to grow up in, a peaceful place that also held many moments of exquisite excitement: calving time, the roundups, the rodeos, the auctions in Fort Worth. Southfork cattle were commanding some of the highest prices in the state, bulls and new breeds won prizes every year at the State Fair in Dallas, and money, well, it was just there, lots of it."
Of course Miss Ellie went on to marry Jock Ewing. You know the rest of it.
"Today, Southfork is a mighty ranch out of the past, though it is slightly different with the times. Its traditions continue: the riding, roping, branding of cattle (some of the state's finest Charolais, Angus, and Santa Gertrudis),"
Quotations taken from this website if you want to read more about it:
http://www.ultimatedallas.com/episodegu ... hfork.html