AGGIELI0EWS
THE BATTALiHhE BATTALION
5A
Thursday, January 30, 2003
BlitjBidders vie for piece
audkiuM historic Texas ranch
Kiowa Natl. |
Grassland,
N.M.
By Betsy Blaney
I THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
I DALHART, Texas — As a
Joung girl, Susan Shamburger
Bagwell rode on horseback
Brass the vast land that her fam-
By owned, land that once was
Ipart of a legendary West Texas
■inch.
I The XIT Ranch once
spanned 3 million acres of the
Bexas Panhandle and spilled
Bver into Oklahoma and New
Blexico. It helped finance the
stale Capitol in Austin.
I On Wednesday, Bagwell and
Bther family members watched
Bs dozens of buyers placed bids
Bn all or portions of one of the
Brgest remaining parcels of the
Bid XIT, the
B7,000-acre C.D.
Bhamburger
ftanch.
“It will
ilways be part of
ny life,” said
fcagwell, 56, who
low lives in the
ealthy Dallas
Inclave of
ighland Park,
love this land.
Ibis property, the
fistory, the
ildlife. It’s just
ioul nourishing.
That’s all you can
say about it.”
Some Texas
history buffs were melancholy
about the prospect of one of the
last large pieces of the XIT
being chopped up.
“It’s a very sad chapter in the
history of the XIT Ranch
because that division is just
going to disappear,” said
William Green, curator of histo
ry at the Panhandle-Plains
Historical Museum in Canyon.
‘Tfs.kiad of the end of an era.”
sm said he couldn’t even
is to be on the sh bear to go the auction; it was too
•adan occasion.
Bidding on the Shamburger
and began Wednesday morning
nd continued into late after-
oon. Bids were accepted on
ndividual tracts or the whole
anch, with the land to be sold
he manner resulting in the high-
st sales price.
By late afternoon, the top
)ids totaled nearly $8 million, or
ibout $210 an acre.
More than a century ago, the
and sold for 50 cents an acre in
xchange for a new state Capitol
n Austin.
In 1879, the patriarchs of
History for sale
At least 37,000 acres of land in
three states are on the auction
block Wednesday in Daihart,
Texas. The parcels were once
part of the famed XIT Ranch.
OKLA.
Tracts 13-43
Clayton 5;
\|
Tract 12
SOURCES: Associate Press; ESRI
MANCE • THE BAVy'-'
om outside Texas
lifferent back-
n see a program
isting directors.I
i that of “The Rei
thinks the next
d take place in a
pick a dorm and
' he said.
I Longmire Dr.
iollege Station
Texas wanted a new Capitol but
didn’t have money to build it.
The Legislature set aside 3 mil
lion acres of land in the
Panhandle to finance a new
building. The need became more
urgent in 1881, when the old
Capitol burned to the ground.
The next year, an Illinois
contractor agreed to build a new
home for the Legislature in
exchange for the land. The con
tractor later sold his interest to a
group that eventually became
known as the Capitol Syndicate,
which financed most of the cost
of the new Capitol and estab
lished the XIT Ranch.
The syndicate owners fenced
the entire range with 6,000 miles
of barbed wire — an audacious
move in the
days of the
open range —
and brought
in up to
150,000 head
of cattle.
About 100
cowboys
tended the
range and
livestock for
$30 a month
and all they
could eat.
Legend
has it that the
XIT name
stood for “10
in Texas,”
because the
220-mile-long spread the size
of Connecticut covered 10
Texas counties. Others say it
was chosen because the XIT
brand was harder for cattle
rustlers to cover.
The syndicate began selling
off the land around 1901 for $6
an acre. The last XIT cattle were
sold in 1912 and the ranch went
out of business.
C.D. Shamburger, a Wichita
Falls lumber yard owner, began
buying Panhandle land in the
1930s. He completed his
120,000-acre ranch with the
1943 purchase of a parcel from
the Capitol Freehold Land Trust,
which had taken control over the
old XIT land.
Over the years, the
Shamburger Ranch shrunk to the
37,000 that were auctioned
Wednesday by his heirs.
Bagwell, Shamburger’s grand
daughter, said family members
decided to sell because they
have less connection to the land
and other ideas about investing
their money.
Rita Blanca
Natl. Grassland
Tracts 1-11 TEXAS
• Daihart
AP
ate
on
3
NEWS IN BRIEF
! Perry fights to close state tax loophole
AUSTIN (AP) — A loophole that allows some businesses to avoid
paying state franchise taxes is unfair and should be done away with,
Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday.
Perry, after speaking to the Texas Association of Business, said
that the so-called “Delaware Sub” loophole should be closed.
Under the practice, companies incorporate on paper in Delaware or
in other states where taxes are lower. Then they legally organize into a
virtually tax-free partnerships here. Dell Computer Corp., SBC
Communications and some large Texas newspapers are organized this
way and avoid state taxes.
on
Policy
750ml
uila 80°
750 ml
Continued from page 1
the parents are informed of that
decision, Cannon said.
Student athletes are tested
randomly throughout the year,
including the summer. With
any reasonable suspicion, the
department can request an ath
lete to give a sample for a drug
test, he said.
If a drug test is positive, and
it is a student’s first offense,
the student is suspended from
the next competition period, a
time period not to exceed 10
percent of the total sport con
test, Cannon said. Students
must participate in a mandatory
counseling session and pass a
follow-up drug test which can
occur at any time the following
year. Parents are also informed
of the offense, Cannon said.
A second offense results in
immediate suspension of the
athlete from the program, artd
reinstatement is determined by
a substance abuse committee,
Cannon said.
Similar to the first offense,
students will be tested at any time
and parents are again notified,
Cannon said.
A third offense will immedi
ately suspend the student from
the athletic program for one year,
and the student will lose eligibili
ty for grants and financial aid,
Cannon said.
Steroids are a performance
enhancing drug that the Athletic
Department does not tolerate.
Watkins gave no new updates
on Slocum’s suspension this
week, nor did he say how long
Slocum’s suspension might last
or whether Slocum would return
before the basketball season ends.
The office of the U.S. Drug
Control and Policy’s Web site
says steroid use can result in
health risks such as liver cancer,
heart attacks and elevated choles
terol levels. Also, withdrawal
symptoms such as increased irri
tability and aggression can occur.
Margaret Griffith, health edu
cation coordinator for the A.P.
Beutel Health Center, warns stu
dents against needles used for
steroids.
“Because needles for steroid
use are only available with a pre
scription, people tend to share
them and HIV is transmitted this
way,” Griffith said.
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