HANSFORD LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY, LIMITED...PROSPECTUS...DUNDEE, NOVEMBER 23, 1882. -

Dundee, Scotland, 1882. Small quarto broadside. The Hansford Land and Cattle Company, with massive holdings in the northern Texas Panhandle, was founded by James M. Coburn, a native of Scotland who had emigrated to Kansas City where he conducted a banking business. He returned to Scotland briefly to organize the company during the legendary rush by English and Scottish investors in the early 1880's to reap the windfall profits of the American range cattle business. Many of these companies never recovered from the losses from losses in the Great Blizzard of 1886, but Hansford, one of the leading entrants, endured. Its first acquisition was the Turkey Track Ranch in Hutchinson County in the Texas Panhandle, soon followed by two other ranches "The 1890 combined ranches...covered northern Hutchinson and southern Hansford counties... By1890 the Hansford Company owned 85,000 acres of land and leased an additional 350,000, with an average cattle count of 30,000 head..." --Handbook of Texas