The JA Ranch: A National Historic Landmark Still Operating in Armstrong County

In the fall of 1876, cattleman Charles Goodnight drove a herd into Palo Duro Canyon. He set up his Home Ranch near the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River in what is now southwestern Armstrong County. In 1877 he partnered with English aristocrat John George Adair. They named the ranch the JA Ranch after Adair's initials. By the early 1880s the ranch had grown to over one million acres across six counties.

The Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas calls the JA Ranch the oldest privately owned cattle operation in the Panhandle. The ranch's headquarters area became a National Historic Landmark in 1960. John Adair died in 1885. His wife Cornelia continued as owner of the ranch until her death in 1921, overseeing it through a series of hired managers. Adair family descendants have kept it going since.

The JA Ranch is private land and not open to the public. Even so, it is central to Armstrong County's story. The county's farm economy — ranching and dryland wheat farming — goes back to this era. Claude, the county seat, grew as a railroad cattle-shipping point starting in 1887. Charles Goodnight reportedly cast the deciding vote that made Claude the county seat when Armstrong County organized in 1890.