By Sue Hancock Jones
A university research professor called to ask an unanticipated question: “Are you surprised that the National Ranching Heritage Center is designated as a tourism site that includes African-American heritage?”
“No,” I answered. Our connection to African-American rancher Daniel Webster “80 John” Wallace makes that assumption logical—even educational—but a part of me deep inside answered with an inaudible “yes.”
Like many other people, I didn’t realize that according to the Smithsonian’s count, one in four cowboys during the pioneer era were black. My cowboy image wasn’t John Wayne, but it did look a lot like the Marlboro Man.
“No picture of American history has been painted more white than the pioneer picture, the story of the frontier,” said William Loren Katz, a historian and author of “The Black West.” The 92-year-old author is one of a host of historians dedicated to reinserting blacks into the historic American landscape where they rode and roped but were somehow erased.
When the NRHC began efforts to disassemble and move the “80 John” Wallace house to Lubbock, the first paragraph of the 2007 funding proposal summarized the historical significance: “The acquisition of this house will provide an educational tool for including the participation of America’s black cowboys and families in the development of the ranching and cattle industry.”
Wallace was born to a slave mother in Victoria County, Texas, on Sept. 15, 1860. That was about three months after she had been sold for $1,000 and brought to Texas from Missouri to be a housemaid. A father or a father’s death are never mentioned in biographies about Wallace, but separating families through a slave purchase was common before the Emancipation Proclamation.
As a young man in the 1870s, Wallace worked in the fields chopping and plowing for 30 to 50 cents a day. Six decades later, he owned 14.5 sections of land and 600 head of cattle with no liens, mortgages or past due tax bills. According to “The Handbook of Texas,” he left an estate worth more than $1 million.
Being a landowner probably never entered Wallace’s mind as a 15-year-old, but thinking of ways to join the trail-drive cowboys was always on his mind. One day he was filling the bin with wood when he heard men talking about a large herd of cattle headed west. He knew the exact hour the drive would begin and every phase of the drive.
At 3:30 a.m. he got up silently, dressed in the dark, tip-toed past his sleeping mother and ran in the direction of the herd. Tired and gasping for breath, Wallace begged the first person he saw to let him join the drive. It was the herd boss. “Can you ride?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” Wallace answered, knowing that all he’d ever ridden were plow horses and mules. Before long, the most difficult and dangerous work the new cowboy would face would be taming wild horses.
When the 80 John Wallace house was built about 1900, the land around it was grazing pasture owned by one of Texas’ most successful African-American ranchers, Daniel Webster Wallace. That name may not be as familiar as his nickname—80 John. The house has a cross-shaped design with four porches that allow the advantage of cooling breezes.
Wallace was the wrangler on that cattle drive. He had to trail the unsaddled horses nearly all day and at night to be sure they didn’t wander from camp. He was the first to roll his bedding, wake the cook and bring the horses to the corral. Soon he could outride or keep pace with any of the cowboys, but he was not happy constantly riding the mean and hard-to-handle horses. Sometimes he felt alone, but years later he would tell his children that his strength came from the satisfaction of doing a good job.
Wallace earned $15 at the end of that drive—the most money he had ever received at one time. He went on to work cattle drives and roundups for C.C. Slaughter, Isaac Ellwood, Sam Gholson, John Nunn and several big operation owners. Wallace was 17 in 1877 when he went to work for Clay Mann. Branding Mann’s cattle with a large “80” on their sides from backbone to belly was how he became known as “80 John.”
Wallace considered Mann a superior Texas cattle baron. The two of them made a gentlemen’s agreement that Mann would pay Wallace $5 a month from his $35 wage for two years and put the remainder aside for Wallace to invest in his own herd. Wallace used the remaining $600 to buy steers that he branded with the word “Wallace” from hip to shoulder. His cattle grazed with Mann’s, and when both herds went to market, 80 John received his share.
Wallace observed that many cattle barons were not educated enough to sign their name on documents. He only had three or four months in school and was eager to improve himself. When he heard of a school for Negroes in Navarro County, the 25-year-old 6’ 3” cowboy enrolled in the second grade and spent two winters in school, returning to the ranch for work during the other seasons.
What the teachers discovered was that 80 John had his own peculiar method to calculate problems and could give the correct answers in interest, percentage and simple land measurements faster than more advanced students could find their slates and pencils.
While at Navarro County, 80 John met Laura Dee Owen, who was finishing high school and planning to teach after graduation. Instead she and 80 John married in 1888 and lived in a two-room house and dugout on one of the Clay Mann ranches.
Mann advised Wallace to buy land because it would not always be available. When Texas opened some railroad lands in 1885, Wallace purchased and homesteaded two sections near Loraine in Mitchell County, Texas. That was the beginning of a continuous desire to improve as a rancher.
Eventually they built the cross-shaped board and batten ranch house that has been relocated to the NRHC. When oil was discovered on the ranch, they built an eight-room modern home in Colorado City, Texas, so the children could attend school. Three generations of Wallace children have gone to college, and Colorado City named a school after him.
Wallace continued to break horses until he was 74 years old but died in 1939 at the age of 78. He was buried in a family cemetery on the first section of land he bought. Colorado City unveiled a Texas Historical Commission marker dedicated to him in 1966 and placed the marker at the site of the cemetery.
Colorado City unveiled a Texas Historical Commission marker in 1966 giving an account of 80 John’s long career as a cowboy and rancher. The marker stands at the site of the family cemetery located on the first section of ranch land Wallace purchased.
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