Historic Ransom Canyon
Written by: Norm Brown; Webmaster for Ransom Canyon Realtors
Viewing Ransom Canyon as a community or place to live is not really new if you consider its previous
inhabitates. This included Settlers from the Clovis-age who were in this region approximately 12,000
years ago. These Hunter gathers lived in and around Yellow House Draw, a dry tributary of the Brazos
River. By the time white settlers came to Texas they were called "Indians". Many burial sites have been
found in Ransom Canyon and nearby Buffalo springs in recent years.
In early america, travelers (hunters and traders) came through Ransom Canyon for destinations to the
north and the concho in the south. Ransom's more recent vistors were the COMANCHEROS. Because
of the early history an Historical Marker was erected within the Ransom Canyon Township near the
entrance to the Party Island.
The town site, identified as Canon del Rescate (Rescue or Ransom Canyon) on an early United States
Army map, received its name from the Comanchero practice of buying white captives at this location
from Comanches who had taken the prisoners from ranches and settlements in Texas and Chihuahua
(U.S. Dept. of War).
Comancheros took the captives to Santa Fe, from where the captives were sold or ransomed back to their
families (Abbe,Carlson, and Murrah, 1989).
The Comancheros were natives of northern and central New Mexico who conducted trade
for a living
with the nomadic plains tribes, often at designated areas in the Llano Estacado. They cut trails followed
by traders and later ranchers and settlers. They were so named because the Comanches, in whose
territory they traded, were considered their best customers.
The term, unknown in Spanish documents, was popularized during the 1840s by Josiah Gregg and
subsequently applied by United States Army officers who were familiar with
Gregg's accounts. Initially,
the Comancheros' lucrative practice was considered legitimate, and trade grew slowly. Increased
demand for cattle in New Mexico, however, led to become "rustlers by proxy" who traded stolen cattle
to the Indians. The resulting hostility between Indians and settlers led to army intervention in 1874 and
the Comancheros' eventual demise.
Comancheros ranged east to the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma, southeast as far as the Davis
Mountains in Texas, and north to the Dakotas. The distinctive form of trade associated with them began
with a treaty of 1786 between the Spanish governor of New Mexico, Juan Baptista de Anza, and the
Comanche Indians of the plains, allowing trade between New Mexico and the Indians in return for
Indian protection of Texas against intruders on Spanish territory.
At first many Comancheros cached their oxcarts or carretas and
loaded their merchandise on burros
before venturing into the trackless Comanchería. But by the 1840s Josiah Gregg, James W. Abert, and
other American mapmakers found evidences of broad cart
trails leading into the Canadian River valley.
Randolph B. Marcy described the "old Mexican cartroad" in his 1849 survey. Lieutenant Abert, while at
Bent's tradinghouse on the
Canadian in September 1845, parleyed with a small group of
Comancheros,
and in 1853 some New Mexico traders helped guide Lt. Amiel W. Whipple across the Panhandle.
During the first decades of the Comancheros' trade, their merchandise consisted largely of
beads, knives,
paints, tobacco, pots and pans, and calico and
other cloth, as well as the metal spikes that Indians came
to prefer over flint points for their arrows. Foodstuffs such as
coffee, flour, and bread were also bartered.
The majority of their excursions were to the Comanche and Kiowa villages on the
Llano Estacado.
Such expeditions, poorly organized and often risky, depended on the nature of relations with different
tribes.
From about 1840 on, Comanches realized the commercial value of horses and raided the frontiers of
both Texas and northern Mexico to secure animals not only for themselves but for trade to the
Comancheros. The rising demand for cattle in New Mexico led to
further raiding. Between 1850 and
1870 thousands of animals stolen by Indians were traded by Comancheros to merchants in New Mexico
and Arizona who had contacts with government beef
contractors. The addition of firearms, ammunition,
and whiskey to the list of trade items from New Mexico likewise added to the trade's worsening
reputation. Although the territorial governors of New Mexico attempted to regulate the trade by requir-
ing
licenses, Comancheros mainly neglected the law. Many American
officials, particularly federal
Indian agents, believed that
trading was merely a cover-up for the New Mexicans' real purpose
of incit-
ing resentment and resistance against Anglo Texans. Certainly the traders and their Comanche
customers shared a
common dislike of Anglos, and as far as the victims of raids and
thefts were concern-
ed, the feeling was mutual.
As the sordid commerce in stolen property increased, the
Comancheros began arranging specific meeting
times and places with their Indian customers to conduct business away from any settlements. The remote
Panhandle-South Plains area thus became
an ideal trading ground for these transactions. Horses,
mules, and cattle bearing Texas brands were exchanged for such items as
tobacco, coffee, and whiskey
at popular rendezvous sites like Mulberry Creek, on what became the JA Ranch range; Tecovas
Springs,
on the future Frying Pan Ranch northwest of the site of Amarillo; Sweetwater Creek, near the site of
Mobeetie; Atascosa Creek, at the site of Old Tascosa (now Cal Farley's Boys Ranch);
and Yellow House
Canyon near the site of present-day Lubbock, known to the Comancheros as Cañón del Rescate
(Canyon of
Ransom). Another familiar trading site was at Las Lenguas (or Los
Lingos) Creek near the
future site of Quitaque. From a typical
rendezvous, during which bargaining might last as long as three
weeks, a shrewd Comanchero could take back with him a mule for
five pounds of tobacco or a keg of
whiskey, a good pack horse for ten pounds of coffee, or a buffalo robe for little or nothing.
Probably the most controversial aspect of the Comancheros'
operations was the ransoming of captives,
a practice dating back centuries. At first enterprising New Mexicans had bought only
captive Indians
for use as mine workers or servants, but as time went on they began accepting Mexican prisoners as
well. Many traders reportedly made large profits from highborn captives they
had ransomed from
Comanches by holding them for a suitable "reward" from relatives in the settlements of Texas or
north-
ern Mexico or from American government officials.
The Civil War momentarily left the Texas frontier practically
defenseless and allowed the Indian raiders
free access to livestock grazing in the Cross Timbers and Hill Country of
central West Texas. Coman-
cheros profited handsomely from this stock, much of it left unbranded as well as unattended, which
they
frequently traded to army posts, government Indian reservations, and ranchers for guns, ammunition,
and whiskey to trade to the Indians. Noted traders like José P. Tafoya maintained crude rock and adobe
shelters at places like Las
Lenguas or Tecovas Springs during the 1860s.
Comancheros often accompanied Comanches on cattle raids into
Coleman County and environs in the
1870s. The days of the Comancheros were numbered, however, as Texas Rangers and United
States
Army patrols mounted increasing pressure on their Indian customers. Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie and
other army commanders often enlisted, or perhaps conscripted, Comancheros to guide them
to the camps
of the Indians with whom they had traded. The final
defeat of the Comanches and their allies in the Red
River War, along with the extermination of the buffalo by hunters, ended the
Comanchero trade.
In the late 1870s Casimero Romero, José P.Tafoya,q Juan Trujillo, and others who had sometime
engaged in the Comanchero trade settled for a time in the western Panhandle as peaceful pastores.
Source: From J. Evetts Haley, "The Comanchero Trade,"
Southwestern Historical Quarterly 38
(January 1935). Charles Leroy Kenner, A History of New Mexican-Plains Indian Relations
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969). Frederick W.
Rathjen, The Texas Panhandle Frontier
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973).
Two Lubbock residents, Johnny Gafford and Houston Pearson, wanted to develop a residential
community. Located in Lubbock County about seven 
miles east of the city of Lubbock, the town is
situated in Yellow House Canyon, which contains a head stream of the Brazos River and forms a wide, deep cut in the Llano Estacado. .
About 1959,Johnny Gafford and Houston Pearson began their
plans for Ransom Canyon. They approached the Johnston family
about purchase of what remained of the
ranch and discussions
followed. Two years later on October 13, 1961, Gafford and Pearson
purchased from the
Johnston heirs over 570 acres (Deed of Sale,
1961). The
develop of Ransom Canyon had begun. 
Development was not easy. Once they had purchased the land,
Gafford and Pearson applied for water rights in the canyon, but were
unable to secure them until May 1962. In June, they
got a permit for
construction of and earth-filled dam and
spillway to form a reservoir
and lake. Then, in June 1964, they organize the Yellow House
Canyon Water Control and Improvement District. To raise money for
projects associated with the water district and the residential
community, Gafford and Pearson called for the sale of bonds, which
occurred on July 26 (Ransom Canyon Papers).
A few months later on
December 18, the water district's
first board of directors meeting
occurred.
Now Gafford and Pearson moved to get construction of their
community underway. They completed the earthen dam
in late 1964, and early in 1965, they arranged for
the extension of 50th Street from FM 1729 eastward shortening the
canyon. But, in need of money, not all went well. Thus, they sought
assistance and capital in Houston, Texas. There they got support from
Walter Mischer of Craigmont Building Co., Inc., and
on June 1,
1965, a joint venture agreement was signed (Deed
of Restrictions,
1965). After a heavy rain on August
14, the day set for the official
opening of the canyon
development project, a subsequent flood
destroyed the
dam. Mischer, whose financial backing was the real key to
a successful project, sent Jack
Gibson to Ransom Canyon.
Gibson, who was to oversee the community's development,
stayed with the
project only a short time, but he
provided the community its name, lived in the old
Johnston ranch house,
witnessed the construction of the
present dam and the front road into the canyon, and
directed early
property sales (Ogletree, 1991).
When the sale of residential lots and the construction of homes proved
disappointing, Mischer with
Gafford and Pearson sought
direction from local
realtors. As a consequence, on March 1, 1967, Ray
and Harold Chapman
joined the venture at Lake Ransom Canyon, as
it was now called (Joint
Venture Agreement, 1967). Over the next
several years, principal ownership
and leadership of the Lake
Ransom Canyon project changed hands several
times, but the
Chapmans continued to direct the canyon's development. They were
not disappointed.
The sale of
lots and the construction of homes increased as the
Chapmans, who organized Lake Ransom Canyon Realtors,
played a
key role in the growth of the residential
community. Indeed, as a result
of the Chapmans'
successful marketing of the place, just ten years
later
property owners of canyon voted to incorporate the
village,a procedure they completed on
December 12, 1977.
The old Yellow House water district dissolved in 1982,
and on April 10, 1984,
canyon residents voted to drop
"Lake" from the name of their community. Today,
the town of Ransom
Canyon boasts an increasing population.
Our residence's enjoy their unique canyon community fully
as
much as the Native Americans who traded, hunted, and
camped amid the trickling springs and
towering
cottonwoods that still characterize a portion of the
canyon's appeal and beauty.
Few signs remain of our earlier ancestors! If walls could talk we would probably know even more about
this Historic Site!
