SMS ranches
Open-knowledge reference entry
The SMS Ranches are a famous group of cattle ranches located in West Texas.
Background
Swante M. Swenson migrated to America from Sweden during 1836. In 1850 Swenson moved to Austin, Texas and established a mercantile business with his uncle Swante Palm. While running the business, Swenson continued to buy railroad land and then bought school scripts to acquire additional property. In 1854 Svenson invested in the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway, which gained him acres of land in northwestern and western Texas.
SMS Ranches eventually became one of the largest landowners in Texas. At their peak, the SMS Ranches occupy considerable portions of twelve counties in the lower plains area of West Texas and comprise more than 300,000 acres (1,200 km2). The ranches were named for the initials of the founder, Swante M. Swenson. The SMS brand, consisting of an extended M sandwiched between two reversed S's, was registered by the Swensons in the spring of 1882. At one time most, if not all, foremen of the SMS Ranches were immigrant Swedes.
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This entry incorporates text from “SMS ranches” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.