Texas A&M University Press


Empire Builder
in the Texas Panhandle
William Henry Bush
by Paul H. Carlson

In 1881, a Chicago-based businessman named William Henry Bush secured interest in the sprawling Frying Pan Ranch in the heart of the Texas Panhandle. Paul H. Carlson, in telling Bush's story, also takes a close look at the Texas Panhandle's development from the 1880s to the 1930s, when wheatfields and then oil derricks replaced cattle on the landscape.

The celebrated Frying Pan Ranch covered two counties and bordered what later became Amarillo, a raw frontier settlement. The ranch's unlikely new owner from the North was a clothing wholesaler, real estate developer, philanthropist, and fledgling cattleman. As an outsider, he brought his business savvy and vision of civic growth to bear on one of America's last frontiers.

In an age of unrestricted capitalism and flamboyant displays of wealth, Bush's style was quiet and unassuming. A major real estate owner in the burned-over district of post-1871 Chicago, Bush cast his eye elsewhere for opportunity and found it in the Texas Panhandle. There, he risked his future on a region that had been left largely untouched by commerce.

By the late 1880s, he had taken greater control over operations at the Frying Pan Ranch and had assumed a major role as a business and civic leader in the region, pioneering in agricultural and economic diversification. Bush's philanthropic efforts focused on the vitalization of Amarillo—helping to create a community that would come to dominate the Panhandle by the 1930s.

PAUL H. CARLSON is professor of history at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He is the author of four previous books, including "Pecos Bill": A Military Biography of William R. Shafter and Texas Woollybacks: The Range Sheep and Goat Industry.

Number One: West Texas A&M University Series

Empire Builder in the Texas Panhandle
ISBN 0-89096-712-1
$29.95s

LC 96-10628. 6x9. 208 pp. 13 b&w photos. Map. Bib. Index.
Western History. Business History. Ranching.

Publication Date: August 1996.


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