Cattle, Cotton, Corn

From about a generation after the end of the Industrial Revolution up until the Great Depression, Texas agriculture went through many changes. Unlike the massive, storied ranches spun into romantic westerns or Hollywood films, small family ranches had to adapt constantly to the economic present.

Cattle, Cotton, Corn draws from the minutiae of family records and oral accounts to piece together the history of several middle-class ranches in Central Texas that were operational from 1880 to 1930. The Caufields, Cavitts, Youngs, and Footes were ordinary Texans surviving changing economic forecasts and the boom-and-bust cycles of living from the land.

Compiled from decades of research by a scion of one of the families, this book adds to the corpus of Texas ranching epics by focusing on the lived experiences of regular ranch families, most of whom were not particularly wealthy or politically prominent. Cattle, Cotton, Corn tells a history important to the fabric of turn-of-the-century Texas, and it will resonate with many who will see their own family’s history reflected in its very pages.

Author Biography

Watson C. Arnold has seen several incarnations of his career. A physician by training, he was the director of pediatric nephrology, dialysis, and transplantation at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth for twenty years. During that time, he earned a certificate in ranch management and a PhD in history from TCU. Arnold has taught in the pediatrics department of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and he has also taught in the history departments of TCU and Baylor. He is a member of the board of directors of the Texas State Historical Society.