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In 1876 the Texas legislature established Ochiltree County from lands formerly assigned to the Bexar District. Ranching arrived a little later in Ochiltree County than it did farther south in the Panhandle. By 1885 Henry W. Cresswell had purchased or leased most of the county and established the Cresswell Ranch (Bar CC) on Wolf Creek in the eastern part of the county and moved its headquarters from Roberts County to the new site on Wolf Creek.
His company, the Cresswell Land and Cattle Company of Colorado, was syndicated as the Cresswell Ranch and Cattle Company by 1885. The Cresswell Ranch controlled most of the land in the county. Dee Eubank and Tom Connell, who arrived on Wolf Creek in 1879, controlled much smaller acreages in the eastern part of Ochiltree and the western part of Lipscomb counties. After the blizzards of 1886-87 county lands were opened to settlement by stock farmers who operated on a much smaller scale.
The availability of land in Ochiltree County coincided with the proximity of a new railroad.  In 1887 the Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas, a Santa Fe subsidiary, built a line from Kansas through Oklahoma into the Panhandle via Canadian and Panhandle. This line passed through Lipscomb County, thirty to forty miles east of Ochiltree. Thus the county was only one or two days' travel from the railroad. William Beck Ochiltree was born in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, N.C., October 18, 1811. Father of Thomas Peck Ochiltree. Judge of Texas Republic, 1842; Texas Republic Secretary of the Treasury, 1844-45; Attorney General of the Texas Republic, 1845-46; delegate to Texas state constitutional convention, 1845; member of Texas state house of representatives, 1855; candidate for U.S. Representative from Texas, 1859, 1866; delegate to Texas secession convention, 1861; Delegate from Texas to the Confederate Provisional Congress, 1861-62. Died in Jefferson, Marion County, Tex., December 27, 1867. Interment at Oakwood Cemetery, Jefferson, Tex. Ochiltree County, Tex. is named for him.
Cities and Towns Booker Perryton Ochiltree
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