Page 8 - The Hunt - Summer 2021

EDITOR’S NOTE
HI erd Mentality
n the Spring 2011 issue of The Hunt, simple,” noted Conway. “Use the farm to writer Terry Conway crafted a narrative fatten their Santa Gertrudis cattle, then that seemed utterly foreign to these parts. ship them to Eastern slaughterhouses in
It was a story of cowboys, cattle rustling, lassos and Stetsons.
“When the ‘Big Reds’ rolled in, locals flocked to the area to watch the spring roundup,” Conway wrote. “Perched on split- rail fences, they witnessed a three-hour daily stint of cattle wrangling, enjoying a real-life version of popular television westerns.”
In the Lone Star State, they have a bumper sticker that reads, “I’m from Texas. What country are you from?” But this wasn’t the “country” of Texas. It was southern Chester County. And the story was true—every bit of it.
When the owners of Texas’ famed King Ranch needed an alternative to their drought- scorched pastures, they found the Buck and Doe Run Valley Farms between Unionville and Coatesville, turning the acreage into
a working cattle ranch. “The thinking was
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Newark, N.J.” Every April between 1946 and 1974, cattle were transported by the trainload to Buck and
Doe. “Arriving at dawn each morning for five straight days, the cattle tumbled down from a line of screeching boxcars,” wrote Conway. “Watered in large, fenced grasslands, they were corralled and sorted by steadfast cowhands and often joined by neighbors in fancy English riding gear.”
All of this came to an end in the
mid 1980s, when the King Ranch pulled out of the area and the land was acquired by the Brandywine Conservancy. Now, the herds are back on the same Chester County acreage, thanks to Lisnageer Farm’s Bill Fairbairn, who’s leasing the old King Ranch feedlot and pens on 120 acres off Doe Run Road for his export operation. You won’t find any cowboys on horses. But there’s often as many as 2,500
head of cattle stationed there from all over the country, waiting to be shipped to places like Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
Contributing writer J.F. Pirro goes inside this unique operation, his story punctuated
by the imagery of contributing editor Jim Graham. Cattle may never be king again in Chester County, but Fairbairn’s 120-strong herd of purebred Black Angus—and thousands of guests—are making quite the impression.
Enjoy your summer.
Hobart Rowland Editor-in-Chief
www.periodarchitectureltd.com
6 THE HUNT MAGAZINE summer 2021
ED WILLIAMS