U Lazy S Carriage House

Not every rancher had a carriage house, and certainly not those just starting out. The building housed fine buggies and surreys, pulled by excellent horses. The carriage house was a possession aspired to by many young men. It came with prosperity and usually a wife and children, as most dignified ladies did not ride long distances horseback. The carriage house at the National Ranching Heritage Center was an accoutrement of John B. Slaughter’s fine ranch headquarters in Post, Texas, made possible from years of hard work and smart business transactions.

John B. Slaughter was born in 1848, the fourth of six sons of George Webb and Sarah Mason Slaughter. He was likely named for John Bunyan, author of “Pilgrim’s Progress.” John B. and his brothers were cowboys and drovers. Two of the boys – John B. and C.C. – eventually became Texas cattle barons.

John made his first cattle drive at age 17, earning $15 a month. Many other cattle drives followed, as he learned to deal with electrical storms; stampedes; loss of entire horse herds to Indians; and the deaths of cowhands, friends and family, among them his first wife, May Burris. John remarried in 1880 to Isabella (Belle) Masten May of Dallas, a former Palo Pinto County school teacher.

John’s business acumen eventually resulted in a bank presidency position and success as a large land owner. In 1898, he built a beautiful, four-story home for his family in Fort Worth, where they entered into the city’s societal activities.

In 1901, John purchased the Square and Compass Ranch from the Nave-McCord Cattle Co. in Garza and Lynn counties. He returned so often to West Texas where he had established his U Lazy S operations that Belle sold the Fort Worth home and moved to the ranch. John named the outfit for the brand he used on cattle given to him during the Civil War by his father. John weathered numerous adversities, including prolonged droughts and severe blizzards that killed thousands of his cattle.

The U Lazy S Ranch included a large home, a carriage and harness/saddle house, fences, corrals, water storage tanks, drilling wells, barn, dipping vats and windmills. The headquarters was south of what is now Post, Texas, in the breaks below the Caprock. In 1906, John sold 48,000 acres of his property to C.W. Post, cereal magnate and town developer. When Post came to visit John B. and propose the land deal, he watched a horseman in the distance. He asked Mrs. Slaughter the name of the “little Mexican working those cattle,” calling him “the best cowboy I ever saw.” She answered, “That is Mr. Slaughter.”

After years in the sun, the small-statured John B. was burned brown and when away from home for long periods his black hair grew to his shoulders. He was an expert horseman and a successful cattle breeder (even crossing a Brahman heifer with a buffalo bull). Moreso, he was a well-liked and modest man, unaffected by the immense wealth he had accumulated.

The well-known rancher died on Nov. 11, 1928, after spending the entire day riding in a roundup. That night he talked of having what he thought was indigestion and died the following morning of heart failure. The funeral was held in the big ranch home. The service was described as overflowing to the yard with people who came to pay their respects. That evening it was said the long procession of cars with lights burning wound their way single-file across the breaks and up onto the Caprock, “wending their way behind a man who was on his last ride over his beloved ranch.”

The house was destroyed by fire in 1937, but the U Lazy S Ranch passed to heirs, who continue its operation. The two-story carriage house was donated in John B.’s memory by his grandchildren, John Lott Sr. and his wife, and Mary Belle Lott Macy. The building was moved in one piece with very little repair work needed. The board and batten structure featured a shed roof over a loft with an open center portion where buggies and surreys were kept. Storage space was provided for livestock feed and tack, and the building held the private saddle room of John B. Slaughter.

The second floor, or loft, was used for storage. Inscriptions still visible on the walls tell of life on the ranch, such as: “Boy, was it wet in February 1938,” “92 head of saddle horses,” the number of cedar posts on hand, and a formula for whitewash. Feed attracted mice and rats, so rectangular cuts were made in the base of the carriage house to allow entry and exit for cats on rodent patrol.