Long S Whiteface Camp

Almost anything was possible in the American West when determination was behind a goal. Christopher Columbus Slaughter (1837-1919) is a perfect example of such a story. His ranch, including leased land, at one time totaled more than two million acres. Yet it started out as a mere hole in the ground. His Long S Whiteface Camp headquarters is a link between the simple dugouts and later homes built when the railroad made lumber accessible.

C.C. Slaughter was born a year after the Texas Revolution. William Slaughter, head of the family, came to Texas in 1830 while it was still Mexico. He began the cattle business, and his son, George W., increased its size and wealth. The Slaughters moved northwestward when civilization closed in and made a fortune driving cattle in the years immediately following the Civil War.

C.C. and John B. Slaughter and their brothers came from hardy stock. Their father was George W. Slaughter, Palo Pinto preacher and rancher, known for delivering a sermon with his firearms by his side. His sons went out on their own to find water and land for their small cattle herds. All of the brothers but C.C. stopped below the Caprock; he ventured on to the broad, desolate, dry and flat Llano Estacado – the staked plains area of West Texas. There he met Fount G. Oxsheer, who survived by digging line water wells for his cattle. These watering sources were critical to the ability of man and beast to live on the arid plains. One of the line wells was at the site of what became the two-story dugout now at the National Ranching Heritage Center and Slaughter’s first headquarters.

In 1897, Oxsheer encouraged Slaughter to buy purebred Hereford cattle and breed them. Slaughter bought 2,000 head from another prominent rancher, Charles Goodnight. The cattle were kept at Oxsheer’s Diamond Ranch in Hockley County for three or four years at $1 per head per year. Oxsheer began calling the division the “Whiteface Camp” for the stocky, white-faced cattle. By 1900, C.C. had proved to be a shrewd businessman, a great cattleman and a very wealthy rancher. He was a founder of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and ran one of the largest ranch operations in Texas owned by an individual.

Among the vast areas of land he purchased was the portion of Oxsheer’s Diamond Ranch that included the western pasture line well. In 1901, C.C. had his son and ranch manager, George, build a “cheap and small” structure at the site to serve as a line camp.

A traditional dugout was built into a hillside. Where there was no hillside for a dugout, as was the case for George, a hole was shoveled out of the level plains and covered with brush. The box-and-strip upper story was added in 1905 as living quarters for the section manager and his family.

Hiley Boyd Sr. was a line camp manager who lived in the Long S dugout. He planned and built a second floor. With lumber difficult and expensive to obtain, Boyd told the freighter to bring a few extra boards along when he brought the windmill lumber. He saved the extra wood for several years until enough was accumulated to build the second floor addition.