Cattle Rustling in Texas…..
Welcome back. I’m tracking another unsolved mystery and I need the public’s help in solving this one. There is also an elven thousand-dollar reward so all you wannabe detectives, listen up. Just last month on February 18th 262 cows, mostly mixed yearling weight between 500 and 600 pounds, were stolen from a ranch in Perryton, Texas which sits in the far northeast corner of the state, about fifty miles southeast of Guymon, Oklahoma.
It’s one of the largest thefts of cattle, or rustling as it is commonly called, in recent history and it has a tie to this area because the fellow whose cattle were stolen grew up here. Bob Adcock was raised on the 8,000-acre Cobb Ranch east of Ramona. His dad Edward ran the ranch for years and as Bob grew up, he developed a love of the cattle business.
After first working for his dad, Bob bought his first ranch near Talala, Oklahoma and began building his own cattle business but he needed more land. Texas had lots of available land and when he bought his first ranch there, he soon also expanded into feed lots, eventually operating several in both Texas and Oklahoma.
Bob knew cattle but he had them everywhere and to manage an operation of this size you need to know men as well because often on these far from civilization ranches its just a hired hand watching a large number of cattle on a big piece of land as was the case on February 18th.
Bob had just been to the ranch in Perryton, shipping out over three hundred head to a feed lot. The remaining 262 head were scheduled to go to a wheat field he owned in a week or two and that’s when he returned to find out every cow he had left on the ranch was gone.
How could this have happened? The cows were fed and counted almost daily and there was only one road in that a person could drive a huge cattle truck down and it went right by the house where the cowboy who worked for him lived. It would have taken at least three big semi-trucks and trailers along with several cowboys to haul that many cattle. In addition, every cow had the Lazy 11 brand on it which is basically the two numbers slanted. The Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, which is an arm of the Texas Rangers, is checking the brands everywhere so taking these cows to a cattle auction wouldn’t work.
So, the big question is where could you put that many cows without drawing suspicion? This week if you can figure it out, you’ll be eleven thousand dollars richer and you’ll also be helping a fellow from this area that I’m sure many of you know and or are at least familiar with the Adcock name.
You long time readers may remember that I covered a story about stolen cattle in central New Mexico north of Red River not long ago. It wasn’t nearly as many cows and when the cops found them mutilated, the mystery was how they had been killed. I went out there and for days spent time at the kill sites during both the day and the night looking for clues. Nothing turned up except rumors that aliens and witchcraft followers had killed the cattle which was an interesting story but never proven.
This my friends isn’t some far-fetched idea but just downright theft so if you think you can help Bob call Special Ranger Ben Eggleston at his Texas office (806) 852-4741.
Till next time I’ll see ya down the road…….
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