Burkburnett, Wichita Falls and Electra, Texas

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-every-four-or-five days blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2286; A Landing A Day blog post number 716.

Dan:  After years and years of having Texas be crazily undersubscribed (one of the factors that led my son Jordan to figure out that my “random” lat/long methodology wasn’t so random), it has turned the corner into being significantly oversubscribed! 

I mean, really, since I changed my lat/long ways (70 landings ago), today’s landing is my 9^th Texas landing.  My handy dandy spreadsheet tells me that, based on Texas’ area, it should have 6 landings, not 9.  Ergo, its oversubscribed status.

Curious about the preceding paragraphs, but don’t have a clue?  Check out “About Landing (Revisited),” above.  Could care less?  Just keep reading!

Here’s my regional landing map:

And my local landing map:

 

My streams-only map shows that I landed in the watershed of Gilbert Creek, on to the Red River (of the south) (62^nd hit).  I don’t show it, but of course you know that the Red discharges to the Atchafalaya (69^th hit):

As is my routine, it’s time for my Google Earth (GE) trip from the northern fringes of outer space to the northern fringes of Texas.  Click HERE, enjoy the trip, then hit your back button.

Did you notice the east-west road just north of my landing?  Well, those busy GoogleCam drivers are hitting more and more obscure little roads:

And here’s what the Orange Dude sees:

Here’s a look at the Gilbert Creek, just outside of Burkburnett.  You can’t see much of the creek, but it was the best I could do:

And (also from just outside Burkburnett), a look at the Red River, looking upstream (so Oklahoma’s to the right):

So, I began my usual search for hooks.  Burkburnett?  Interesting name.  Evidently, there was an early rancher named Samuel Burk Burnett who sold thousands of acres to investors.  Some of the investors got together to lay out a town.  And then, Theodore Roosevelt visited the ranch, and deemed Burkburnett the name of the town

Here’s a great back-in-the-day shot of Burkburnett during the oil boom years (from Texas Escapes):

I was sure that I’d find something (or several things) of interest in Wichita Falls.  I’ve actually heard of the city and it’s quite substantial (pop a little over 100,000).

But it turned out to be pretty-much hookless.  I did find one thing that caught my eye.  Remember my July 8^th Woolstock, Iowa post?  It featured the first TV Superman, George Reeves.  Well, it turns out that Wichita Falls is the hometown of the first TV Lois Lane who starred along with George!  Her name was Phyllis Coates.  She was Lois Lane for only the first 26 episodes, and she’s not the Lois Lane that I remember – that was Noel Neill.

Oh well.

So how about Electra?  Interesting name here as well.  It was named after Electra Waggoner, an heiress to the Waggoner Ranch   Well, of course I had to check out the Waggoner Ranch.  From Wiki:

The Waggoner Ranch is an historic ranch in northwest Texas that was (and is) used primarily to raise crops, beef cattle and horses as well as for oil production. It was (and is) notable for being the largest ranch under one fence in the United States.

Wiki incorrectly put everything in the past tense.  To correct their error, I added the “(and is)s”.  Anyway, it was founded in 1852 by Daniel Waggoner.  There’s a long, complex family history associated with the ranch, but it remained in the extended Waggoner family until very recently, when it went up for sale (in 2014). Evidently there has been a long-running intra-family dispute that forced the sale.

I found a Bloomberg piece by Bryan Gruley on the ranch being for sale, which included the following map (be sure to check out the size comparisons at the bottom of the map):

It also included this tongue-in-cheek real estate ad:

The article includes a video, which I strongly recommend you see.  I wasn’t able to embed the video here, so you’ll have to go to the Bloomberg website.  Click HERE, check out the video (and peruse the article if you’re so inclined).

Well, it turns out they finally found a buyer.  Here are the first several paragraphs from another, later Bloomberg piece (also by Bryan Gruley):

Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the NFL’s Rams, has agreed to purchase the historic W.T. Waggoner Estate Ranch in Texas, representatives of the ranch said on Tuesday. Terms for the purchase of the more than 520,000-acre estate were not disclosed. The ranch had been listed with an asking price of $725 million.

District Judge Dan Mike Bird in Vernon, Texas, allowed the family owners of the Waggoner Ranch to proceed in a private transaction with Kroenke, one of the wealthiest owners in professional sports and the owner of 11 ranches in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, and British Columbia. The Waggoner went on the market in 2014 after Judge Bird ordered a sale to end more than 20 years of family litigation.

“This is an incredible opportunity and an even greater responsibility,” Kroenke said in a statement released by the Waggoner family and its representatives. “We are honored to assume ownership of the Waggoner—a true Texas and American landmark.”

Kroenke’s fortune is worth about $6.2 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates.

What the heck is he going to do with 12 ranches spread all over the west?  Oh, well, not my problem . . .

The Bloomberg article didn’t mention the following that I found in Wiki, which explains how he got so rich:

On a ski trip to Aspen, Colorado, Kroenke met his future wife, Ann Walton, a Wal-Mart heiress. They married in 1974.  Already wealthy from real estate, he accrued significant additional wealth when he and Ann inherited a stake in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. upon the 1995 death of her father, James Walton. As of September 2015, that stake was worth $4.8 billion.

Before I finish, it’s time for a true confessions.  I was saving a draft of this post, and Word Press wanted me to type in “tags” that help direct internet searches to my posts.  Well, I started typing “Electra,” and I was prompted towards “Electra Texas.”  This of course means that I had tagged a previous post with Electra.  Son of a gun if I didn’t feature Electra in a March 2010 post.  

I generally pride myself in remembering an area I’ve already written about, but not this time.  With some trepidation, I opened my post, hoping it wasn’t too similar to this one.  Well, it’s not!  Of course, it mentions Electra Waggoner, but it features the ranch very little!  It’s an excellent post (as always), featuring the oil business (specifically pump jacks) and an annual goat BBQ festival in Electra.  Well worth the read!  Just type “Electra” in the search box . . .

OK, OK.  It’s time to close out this post with a lovely sunset picture (taken a few miles from my landing by Texmark2012:

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

 

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