The Long Version

by Steve Trigg … February 2021

Trigg Ranch was established in 1918 when the Bell Ranch sold its first acreage to the partnership of DC Trigg and Son. Stephen Lee Trigg Sr and his father Daniel bought a six mile wide strip of the east and north edge of the Bell. It was 228,000 acres of rough country from Tucumcari north to Mosquero and then west to the Canadian River. This northern stretch west from Mosquero to the Canadian, starts out as high and flat at Mosquero, drops off 700 feet at Burrow Hill to continue as a flat unbroken grassland to the Canadian River and the Mesteño Camp.

The Bell was likely glad to get rid of this hard to work rough country, as evidenced by half the cowboys quitting after a grueling several weeks of gathering all the Bell cattle off the newly sold country.

Steve Sr and his father, “Tuck”, had done very well after a five year ranching venture, leasing the last remaining 600,000 acres of the famous XIT ranch in Texas. In all these ventures, Steve supplied the management and the other partners supplied capital. This was the Buffalo Springs Division of the XIT and flush with money from a good cattle market spurred by World War I, they put money down on the New Mexico ranch and bought all the remaining black herd of 22,000 head and over several months, trailed them from the Dalhart area to New Mexico.

Steve established his headquarters in Dog Canyon where a single room Bell line camp stood next to a natural spring. In 1924, after expanding the rock house into five bedrooms, he moved his growing family from Amarillo. Here the Trigg family persevered through drought and rain, through good markets and bad, through the Depression, and through the turnover of two generations to remain an extended family with deep ties to the land and its legacy.

In 2000, all the family heirs deeded their inherited portion of the ranch into a trust and are now confident that the ranch will survive long term; to stand the test of time.

In September of 2018, the family celebrated its 100 year history with a big blow out, a Centennial Celebration in Mosquero. It was a two day event that began with six guest speakers talking of their mostly local country experiences followed by a dinner and a street dance with live music. The following day offered a visit to the ranch’s dinosaur tracks followed by a picnic.

Today the ranch continues with the fourth generation preparing to take the lead in the family’s stewardship of Trigg Ranch. The goal is to continue this stewardship within the lineal line of descendants so that all the extended family may enjoy the bounty a working ranch offers.