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Jessie Hayden Ranch

Cattle ranch owned by Jessie Hayden in Little Bend, Texas[1] in 1867.[2]

The ranch was an combative competitor of the Miller, Maverick and other local ranches, and threatened to buy or take over all the neighboring grazing land in West Texas.[1]

Hayden began buying land aggressively in 1864,[2] and would use unscrupulous means to acquire as much land as possible, often stooping to fraud, coercion or violence. He had plans to build a "Texas-sized ranch," which would spread across three counties and 5,000 square miles.[1]

In 1867,[2] he raced the Miller cattle drive to Fort Adobe, Arizona Territory, to deliver 2,000 head of cattle for $80,000. In an attempt to stampede the Miller herd, he and his men participated in a gunfight with the Miller ranch hands. In the battle, Hayden was shot in the chest and died two days later in the Fort Adobe infirmary.[1]

With Hayden's death, Laura Miller and Jim Hazlit drove the Hayden herd back to Little Bend. Once back home, the Miller ranch looked after the Hayden herd, and eventually became legal owners of Hayden's former holdings.[2]

Jessie Hayden and some of his Jessie Hayden Ranch hands on the chase for Bret Maverick and ranch hands of the Miller cattle drive[1] at the border of the Arizona and New Mexico territories.[2]