BOYS RANCH

Population 550

Altitude 3,175

General

Cal Farley's Boys Ranch is a nationally known home for boys and girls who benefit from guidance, affectionate discipline, and education in a ranch setting. Established in 2939 by the late Cal Farley, Texas businessman and world welterweight wrestling champion of the 1920s.

The first boys who came to the ranch lived in the abandoned courthouse of Old Tascosa that is now that Julian Bivins Museum. Founded and expanded by private donations, the ranch today covers 10,600 acres. Facilities includes a chapel, clinic, schools, fine arts and auditorium, visitors center, and 23 homes for children.

More than 400 boys and girls help operate the ranch, attend school and vocational classes, and enjoy a year-round program of athletics. A popular annual event is the Boys Ranch Rodeo, Labor Day weekend, featuring competition among youths of all ages. Although some 80 percent of the young people were headed for trouble before coming to the ranch, most remain and graduate from the fully accredited Boys Ranch High School, entering the adult world as useful, self-reliant citizens. Visitors are welcome at the ranch; open daily 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Attractions

• BOOT HILL CEMETERY - When Tascosa was the wide open, riotous cowboy capital of the 1880s, gunfights were traditional means for settling disputes and its cemetery was an essential part of the town. The boys maintain the cemetery today. U.S. 385.
  
• JULIAN BIVINS MUSEUM - Housed in the former Oldham County Courthouse, name honors Panhandle rancher whose donation of land formed the nucleus of Boys Ranch. Artifacts from Indian and prehistoric Panhandle cultures, cowboy and pioneer items, photos and documents about Boys Ranch history. Open daily year round, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• OLD TASCOSA - Pioneer settler in the early 1870s built adobe huts and irrigation ditches along area creeks. After 1875, village became a supply and shipping point for several huge Texas ranches, including the famed XIT and LIT. Bustling town was known as "the Cowboy Capital of the Plains"; became county sat when Oldham County was organized in 1880. The famous and infamous - from Kit Carson to Billy the Kid -once strode its rough plank sidewalks. But as with many Texas cowtowns; the decline set in when the open range was girded with fences, and the railroad bypassed the site. It was deserted by the 1930s.

Back to Main | Advertiser's Index | City Index