Christopher Columbus Slaughter

Christopher Columbus Slaughter was born on February 9, 1837, in Sabine County, Texas.[1][2][3][4] His father, George Webb Slaughter (1811–1895), was a Baptist minister and rancher; his mother was Sarah (Mason) Slaughter (1818–1894).[1][5] At the age of twelve, he took up cattle handling on the Sabine River and the Trinity River.[1][4] He moved to Freestone County, Texas in 1852 with his family.[1] Later, he drove timber from Anderson County to Dallas County, where he sold it.[1] He also processed wheat in Collin County, Texas and sold it in Magnolia, Anderson County.[1][4] Meanwhile, he was educated by private tutors at home and later at the defunct Larissa College in Larissa, Cherokee County, Texas.[1]

In 1857, Slaughter became a rancher with his father in Palo Pinto County, Texas, where they owned 15,000 cattle.[2] They sold beef to Fort Belknap and local Native American reservations.[1] During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he served as a colonel in Terry's Texas Rangers of the Confederate States Army (C.S.A.).[2] Together with Charles Goodnight, he helped rescue Cynthia Ann Parker.[1][6]

Shortly after the civil war, Slaughter explored Mexico with Goodnight and four other companions.[6] However, the expedition came to an end as he was accidentally wounded by a gunshot.[6] Later, he became a cattle drover on the Chisholm Trail in Kansas.[2][7] In 1873, he founded C. C. Slaughter and Company, a cattle breeding firm.[2] Four years later, in 1877, he purchased the Long S Ranch from Plainview to Big Spring, Texas, on the Staked Plains, the largest ranch in West Texas.[2][5] That same year, he cofounded the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.[2] In 1873, he co-founded the City Bank, later known as City National Bank.[1] He served as its vice president of 1881.[1] Meanwhile, the town of Slaughter, Texas in Midland County, Texas was named after him in 1882.[8] In 1884, Slaughter established the American National Bank, later known as the American Exchange National Bank, now part of First National Bank.[1][2]

Slaughter became known as the "Cattle King of Texas."[1][2][3][9][10] Indeed, by 1905, he owned 40,000 cattle and oversaw over a million acres of land in West Texas by 1905.[2] He bred Shorthorns with Herefords.[5] His ranches spanned Howard County, Dawson County, Borden County, Martin County, Castro County, Lamb County, Hale County, Lynn County, and Cochran County.[5][11] For example, he owned the Long S Ranch, but also the 25,000-acre Lazy S Ranch and the 17,000-acre Zavala Ranch, formerly part of the Mallet Ranch, as well as the Whiteface Ranch near Lubbock, Texas.[3][5][12] For years, he was the largest taxpayer in Texas.[1][5]

Slaughter served as president of the United Confederate Veterans.[13] He also served as vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and a member of the executive board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.[9] Additionally, he served on the Texas Baptist Education Commission in 1897.[2] In 1904, he established the Baylor Hospital of Dallas in 1904, and he went on to serve on its board of trustees.[2][9] He was also a donor to the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium and the Nurses' Home and Training School.[9][14] It has been known as the Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.[4] Additionally, he served on the board of trustees of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.[15]

Slaughter married Cynthia Anna Jowell (1849–1876) in 1861, at the beginning of the civil war.[1][2][4][9] They had five children.[2][9] He then remarried, to Carrie Averill (1861–1928) in Emporia, Kansas in 1877, and they had four children.[1][2][4][9]

In 1910, he became crippled after he broke his hip.[1] He also had a debilitating loss of eyesight.[1]

Slaughter died on January 25, 1919, in Dallas, Texas.[3] He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas. Shortly after his death, his son Bob Slaughter accused his uncle Bill Slaughter (C.C.'s brother), who managed the Long S Ranch, of trying to sell the Western S Ranch in Hudspeth County, Texas to Mexican ranchers, even though the ranch belonged to his son.[3][10] As a result, Bob shot his uncle; this resulted in a US$3 million slander suit filed by the uncle against his nephew Bob.[3][10] By 1921, his heirs divided his Long S Ranch and other land holdings, and sold them.[12]

One of his daughters, Nelle (Slaughter) DeLoache, married Ira P. DeLoache (1879–1965), the real estate developer who founded Preston Hollow.

• Clarke, Mary Whatley. The Slaughter Ranches and Their Makers. Austin: Jenkins, 1979.
• Murrah, David J.. C. C. Slaughter: Rancher, Banker, Baptist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981; 2nd edition published by the University of Oklahoma Press, 2012.

• Christopher Columbus Slaughter at Find a Grave