Cattle King Came Back From The Dead

Deciding the gravely wounded captain was a goner, a Confederate general gave George Littlefield a battlefield promotion to major on Dec. 26, 1863.

The Littlefields had lived in Gonzales County less than two years, when the head of the house suddenly up and died. Cut off from her kin in Mississippi, Mildred Littlefield found a way to raise and educate four children while running a successful business. To her oldest son, the iron-willed woman always served as a real-life role model.

In the summer of 1861, George Littlefield joined Terry’s Texas Rangers, the renowned Confederate cavalry. A year later, his comrades chose him as their company commander even though at age 19 he was the youngest in the outfit.

Littlefield survived his Christmas encounter with Yankee shrapnel but was classified as unfit for further combat. He hobbled home to his new bride and the unwanted pity of neighbors, who shook their heads at the sad sight of the crippled veteran.

Littlefield refused to accept the affliction and fought against the blinding pain to regain full use of his mangled legs. After an incredible four-year struggle, he threw away his crutches and walked unaided for the rest of his days.

Littlefield’s attempt to make a go of the family farm was cursed by a series of natural disasters. In 1868 worms destroyed his cotton and drought ruined the corn, and in 1869 and 1870 floods washed away the crops.

To pay off the bank and save his farm, Littlefield took a desperate plunge into the cattle business. He drove his herd of 600 head and another 500 bought with borrowed money to Abilene, Kansas. The all-or-nothing gamble proved so profitable that he decided to bet his future on beef.

A shrewd businessman with sense enough to delegate the day-to-day chores to hand-picked hands, Littlefield did not take part in another trail drive. Instead he concentrated on marketing his endless river of steers and building up his new LIT ranch outside Tascosa.

Four years later, Littlefield sold the Panhandle spread for $253,000 and moved his operation to New Mexico. By 1888 he was running more than 35,000 head on an open range estimated at a million and a half acres.

Littlefield directed his prosperous cattle empire from Austin, where he had gone into banking in 1883. After mastering the intricacies of high finance in a record seven years, he opened his own bank which he later located on the ground floor of another personal property, the Driskill Hotel.

At the turn of the century, the American National Bank found a new home in his latest pride and joy, the ninestory Littlefield Building. The spectacular structure was widely hailed as “the most complete and comfortable building in the South.”

In spite of his success in the distant capital, Littlefield never neglected nor lost interest in his first love. “The cattle business is the best and safest business in Texas,” he said in 1906, five years after purchasing the Southern or Yellow House Division of the legendary XIT Ranch.

“The Major” also played a key role in the settlement of the sparsely populated Panhandle with the 1913 founding of the Lamb County community that bears his name. The development of Littlefield was not, however, a purely philanthropic venture since the city father sold the land for as much as 15 times what he paid for it.

Late in life, Littlefield devoted much of his time and money to the University of Texas and the commemoration of the Confederate cause. He donated $2 million to the state’s largest college and financed the construction of a multitude of monuments and statues to Southern heroes. The beef and banking baron took great pride in the fact that, unlike most ex-Confederates, he never sought a presidential pardon for fighting on the losing side in the War Between the States.

While Littlefield had a well-deserved public reputation as a hard-nosed businessman, in private he took care of more than two dozen relatives. He never failed to lend a sister or brother a helping hand and generously picked up the tab for the schooling of their many children.

In addition to countless checks, Littlefield regularly wrote long letters to his nephews and nieces encouraging them to give life nothing but their very best. “Be honest and upright, keep out of bad habits and your friends will love you,” he advised one young kinsman. To another he explained the logic behind pinching pennies: “Try and save up funds that you may be independent of all that may mistreat you.”

In a letter to yet another nephew, George Littlefield expressed a sentiment shared by successive generations of Texans. “We who have grown up since the fall of the Alamo should be inspired with patriotism when we look at those old walls and recall the acts of those who perished there.”

Wishing one and all a very Happy New Year and a prosperous 2026! – Bartee Haile