For fifty years the progressive Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company,
popularly known as the Taft Ranch, led in the development of South
Texas, and in the early twentieth century achieved national and
international repute for its contributions to agriculture. The
story of the ranch reaches its climax as the firm is absorbed into
the community growing up around it-the same community the ranch had
nurtured to an unprecedented prosperity. In 1961 A. Ray Stephens
visited Taft, Texas, and received permission to use the
dust-covered records, which for thirty years had been closed to
historians. These records, plus the valuable supplementary material
in the Fulton Collection at the University of Texas, have enabled
the author to tell the complete story of the ranch from its
inception in 1880 to its dissolution in 1930. In 1880, with a
fifty-year charter, the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company was legally
born as a private corporation. For the duration of its history this
company aided the advancement of South Texas through effective
utilization of the fertile land, through development of agriculture
and related industries, and through encouragement of settlers and
curious visitors to the Coastal Bend region. Its history is a long,
determined fight against severe drought, cattle disease, and
financial insolvency. Guided by farsighted men who believed in
experimentation in agriculture-and who also promoted the
establishment of stores, schools, colleges, churches, and
industrial plants-the company not only survived but prospered, and
by 1920 its owners could survey their vast properties with
well-earned satisfaction. The struggling cattle firm of 1880 had
expanded into a multi-interest, profitable corporation that had
established and supervised most of the industries in Taft, Texas.
Stephens' well-documented 1964 study had been long needed. During
the three decades preceding it, the ranch had been well-nigh
forgotten; only the handful of people, then still living, who had
worked on the ranch had kept its memory fresh, while the voluminous
company records remained inaccessible. The author supplemented his
study of company records and newspapers with archival material,
government records, and information obtained during hours of
interviewing. His book will insure for the Taft Ranch its
deservedly prominent position in Texas history. The lively
introduction was written by Joe B. Frantz (1917-1993) who, in his
role of Professor of History at the University of Texas, encouraged
the study and watched its development.
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