Panhandle Cowboys Strike Against Big Ranches

When the March 31, 1883, deadline came and went without word one from the big ranches, cowboys across the Texas Panhandle knew their bluff had been called.

The cowpunchers had two choices: cave into the cattle bosses, who paid them near-starvation wages while treating them like dirt, or strike for more money and the preservation of their way of life.

A week earlier, two dozen cowhands had squatted around a smoky campfire and aired their grievances against the giant spreads. The long list of complaints was turned into a tough ultimatum which they presented to their respective employers.

The cowboys, like most workers before and since, wanted more cash in their pockets. Their proclamation called for doubling the monthly wage of the ordinary hand to $50 with “good” cooks receiving the same. Seventy-five dollars was the petitioned pay for wagon bosses, a sum many already were pulling down. But wage increases were not at the heart of the dispute.

The key issues concerned mavericking and the right of the cowboy to tend his own private herd on the open range. For years the working wrangler had collected unmarked strays, his only means of accumulating cattle and a shot at a better life. But the new absentee owners of the Panhandle ranches prohibited this practice and denied grazing rights to their own men.

The cowboy was convinced that the growing power of the corporate ranches threatened his very existence. He feared being reduced to a peon on a pony with no future beyond chuck-wagon chow and a meager paycheck. The first of its kind strike in 1883 was the endangered cowboy