Next Project?

For years Loeil has been hounding me to write a book on what was known as the Crookston Cattle Co.

And for years I put this off. Mostly because I was lazy and not really interested in the idea. However, when you are young you tend not to be all that interested in history, even when you are intimately tied to it. Plus, I had heard for years from Dad stories about the Crookston Cattle Co., so it was somewhat redundant.

Of course, the irony is - now that Dad is gone, so too is my real link to the story.

You see, the Crookston Cattle Co. - or Minn Tex Meadows as it used to be called or so I believe - is how I ended up in Minnesota.

The story goes like this -- Years ago my grandfather, Cyrus, owned a sheep ranch in Texas. Somehow he knew an individual by the name of Bascom Giles, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/VV/mqv1.html.

Giles happened to be the land commissioner of Texas. According to legend, and Dad always swore by this, Giles and several other powerful politicians in Texas swindled black veterans out of their money from the Veteran's Land Act. According to Dad, Giles and several others threw a large barbecue and invited as many black - and illiterate - veterans as they could. In order to get a plate, they had to sign a piece of paper, this was then used to swindle them out of their land.

Apparently, once the scam was complete, Giles and co. wanted to procure some land as far away from Texas as possible so as to not incite any interest and bring the authorities down on their heads.

So they bought a considerable amount of land in Minnesota.

Giles found a man to run and manage cattle on the property. However, in addition to cattle, he also wanted to run several thousand head of sheep. This is where Cyrus, my grandfather comes in. Giles needed someone to oversee the sheep on the property, so he offered the position to my grandfather.

My grandfather accepted and ended up getting a small farm right next to the Minn-Tex Meadows. This of course is the reason my father came from Texas to Minnesota.

Of course, Giles ended up getting caught. My father always liked to tell how he and his father visited Giles in prison. Giles sent a large black Cadillac to pick up my dad and grandfather and bring them to the prison. Dad recalled how nervous Giles seemed - Dad always thought he was scared that someone might want to have him eliminated because of all he knew; however, Giles took the fall for the entire operation and kept some other very powerful men from the same fate. Dad also recalled how Giles laughed and referred to his incarceration and "working some overtime."

Eventually, the land was sold and has gone through a variety of stages and owners. It was Minn-Tex meadows then the Crookston Cattle Co then Tillden Farms and now it is part of the Glacial Ridge Project. I'm sure I'm missing some other owners and stages in there was well.

Oh yeah, somehow Lady Bird Johnson is supposedly tied up in this whole affair. Now Dad vehemently denied this. However, the more people I talk to, the more this seems like a legitimate possibility. Maybe she -- or maybe her husband, who kept some of his sordid affairs under his wife's name -- was one of the bigwigs that Giles kept quiet about.

Eventually, my grandfather quiet working with Giles and just ran his own small farm, which Dad inherited. In the early 80's Dad sold the property to Tillden Farms and bought the farm I grew up on just north of Marcouix Corner.

Quite an interesting tale I think. Is there a book in there? I don't know. So many of the key players are no dead. But I think it would at least make a very good topic of conversation and research when (and if) we ever get to accompany Barb and her family down for the Reynolds family reunion in Texas.

Here are some links on the controversy. I never realized it was such a big deal. Apparently, the local reporter who broke the story ended up earning a Pulitzer. Quite intriguing indeed.

A link to the scandal and its fallout from Time magazine.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,861316,00.html

Here's another story from Time

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,807395,00.html

Here is a link connecting Giles to Crookston MN.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/texasliving/columnists/kbiffle/stories/050105dnlivbiffle.5e762e2f.html