Renderbrook-Spade Blacksmith Shop

The most distinct sound on a ranch was the ring of a blacksmith’s hammer striking iron. The smell of coal or burning mesquite wood filled the air as bar iron glowed in the hot fire. In short order, the skilled blacksmith created a new rim for a wagon wheel, a pair of shoes for the mule team, a branding iron for the ranch hands and repaired the windmill for the ranch. On a large ranch spread, one of the first structures built was the blacksmith’s shop.

The blacksmith’s shop was necessary in towns and on large ranches when barbed wire and windmills hastened the settling of the frontier. The smith could repair or fashion from iron almost anything the ranch needed. Those who were artistic also created spurs.

It is appropriate that a blacksmith’s shop was the first structure erected in the National Ranching Heritage Center’s historical park. It is significant, too, that the Renderbrook-Spade Blacksmith Shop came from the ranch once owned by a manufacturer of barbed wire.

Isaac L. Ellwood was one of the first successful developers of barbed wire. In 1889, he and his son, W.L., came to Texas on a visit. Near Colorado City, they saw the 130,000-acre Renderbrook Ranch, named for the cavalry captain who had been killed at the spring there, once frequented by buffalo hunters and Indian fighters. The Ellwoods bought the property.

Isaac returned to his barbed wire business, but W.L. stayed in Texas, where the ranch provided him with a place to keep and admire his horses – Percherons, Clydesdales and the Texas cowponies he came to love. Former Texas Ranger D.N. “Uncle Dick” Arnett was hired to manage the Renderbrook in 1891 when the Ellwoods purchased 128,000 acres in Hale, Hockley and Lamb counties. W.L. bought a small herd of cattle carrying a spade-shaped brand, recognizing their owner, J.F. “Spade” Evans. The brand was purchased with the cattle and registered by the Ellwoods.

On Jan. 24, 1970, NRHC Director Jerry Rogers assessed the shop and wrote in his field notes: “The building is in good condition and will be easily moved. It is on a fieldstone foundation, and there appears to be little or no rotting around the bottom. It contains a forge, anvil, hammer, drill press, large grindstone, small grindstone, tongs and possibly other equipment that will be usable. There is little evidenced of architectural change. Shorty Northcutt, manager of the ranch, said it was spray-painted two or three years ago, and at that time it looked like it had never been painted before. Electricity has been added and several small holes have been sawed in the walls.”

When brought to the NRHC, the simple board and batten structure with a pitched roof was placed on the same bed of stones it had sat on when originally built. With the structure’s donation came the Spade’s anvil, forge and other blacksmith equipment.

The Renderbrook-Spade Blacksmith Shop is representative of such late 19th-century facilities, where a man worked as a farrier, a mechanic, a repairman and an artist, creating iron implements needed to survive on a large, remote ranch anywhere in the West.