Kathleen Gregory Collection

Above: Colonel E. S. Graham

E.S. Graham purchased a salt works in 1871 from Judge Martin Bowers on Salt Creek near the present town of Graham. Mr. Graham observed that buffalo seemed to prefer the area. This observation caused him to get the idea that this territory would be one of the finest cattle raising regions in Texas. By 1872, he and his brother decided to establish a town in the Salt Creek Valley adjoining their salt works. G.A. Graham and his chainman, Absalom B. Gant, surveyed and platted a town site with unusually wide streets, spacious lots and a commerce park. True to the observations, the area did become important to cattle raising. On February 17, 1877, about 100 cattlemen of North and West Texas gathered in Graham and formed the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas. The organizational meeting was held under a live oak tree near the northwest corner of the public square.

Manuscript: Colonel E. S. Graham: Diary September - November 1869 Louisville, Kentucky to Young County, Texas with unsigned preface, not paginated  Recollections of Addie M. Graham, 1927, 12 pages bound together with above Letter to Bennett Smith from donor