In the spring of 1881, W. M. D. Lee and Lucien B. Scott, wealthy businessmen of Leavenworth, Kansas, purchased land in the upper Texas Panhandle to establish the Lee-Scott Cattle Company. Their range sprawled across four Texas counties and extended into eastern New Mexico. About six months later, fifty thousand head of mixed cattle, branded LS, grazed those thousands of acres of free grass.

This book is the story of Lee and Scott's LS Ranch from the tempestuous years of the open range to the era of "bob wire." It is also the story of the pioneer men and women whose efforts developed...