Bio of Gunter, Julian L. - Grady County, Oklahoma Transcribed by: Gene Phillips 18 Jun 2006 Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== JULIAN L. GUNTER, of Minco, is one of those men, of which the great southwest furnishes not a few examples, who has enjoyed affluence and power as a cattle king, and, who dethroned by adverse circumstances, spends no moment in repining, but from the bottom of the hill again heroically advances against the fortress. For a period of nearly forty years he was on the upward grade and twenty years ago was one of the cattle barons of the Lone Star state. An unfavorable market proved his undoing in 1904, and since that year he has been engaged in the improvement of twenty acres of land adjoining the town site of Minco, and in the leasing of a large tract of Indian land to tenants. There is no such thing as crushing such men as "Jule" Gunter; he may be retarded, but never defeated. Julian L. Gunter, as he is formally known, is a native of Franklin county, Georgia, born on the 29th of June, 1851. Two years later his father, W. W. Gunter, brought his family to Jefferson, Texas, which was at the headwaters of navigation, and there continued various merchandising pursuits until 1866. With the considerable profits of his business, in 1867 he located on a farm in Cook county and his agricultural ventures and land investments have brought him an ample fortune. At the age of eighty- one, he is now living on an attractive and valuable estate. He was always characterized by strong convictions, and prompt and decided actions, and upheld his reputation in the Civil war by his four years of unflinching service for the Confederacy. During a portion of the period he was captain of his company. He accepted the results of the war with the same spirit of fortitude which has been evinced by his son over the reversals of fortune, and returned to the ways of peace and his new duties of citizenship. His Democracy is still unshaken. Julian L. Gunter received his education in the country schools of early Texas, on the farm and on the ranch. After leaving the rural school he attended a small college at Waco, Texas, having as his teacher the gentleman who afterward became Governor Roberts, and as his landlord the future Senator Coke. Among his classmates were Governor Hogg, Senator Culberson and George Aldrich, of Dallas, Texas. In 1868, when seventeen years of age, he collected 140 head of cattle and bunched them on Walnut Bayou, near Burneyville, Chickasaw Nation, and thus, forty years ago, commenced a business in which he eventually attained great eminence and wealth. After remaining for five years at his first location, he disposed of his cattle and purchased Froman and Beeler's ranch on Wild Horse creek, soon afterward moving his stock to South Paladura, thirtv miles south of Amarillo, Texas. There he purchased 100,000 acres of land at one dollar an acre, fenced it and conducted the ranch until it was supporting 27,000 head of cattle. He then sold the entire property to the Cedar Valley Land and Cattle Company for $700,000, passing to them all the ranch interests he had accumulated in the twelve years of his masterly labors in the business. Then returning to Grayson county, he joined Colonel Jot Gunter in the purchase of a ranch of 20,000 acres twenty miles south of Sherman, generously stocked it, and until the sale of this property in 1886 handled 5,000 head of cattle annually. During this partnership the firm secured a contract from the government to furnish beef to the Comanches, Kiowas, Caddos, Arapahoes and Apaches located at Fort Sill, and within eight months 30,000 beef cattle were slaughtered at a cost of $120,000. His third distinct venture was to re-engage in business on Mud Creek with William Washington, and during the six years of his operations in Cooke county about 20,000 head of cattle were handled annual1y. He also acquired interests in the Cherokee Strip, but was driven out of that territory, with his associates, in the preparatory steps taken by the government shortly before it was opened to permanent settlement in 1893. Selling his interests in Cooke county to Mr. Washington, he bought John Stone's farm near Gainesville, and engaged in the registered Short Horn business. His success was pronounced for a time, but in the face of an almost paralyzed market his heavy stock of fine cattle, which were maintained at an enormous expense, soon destroyed the profits of years, and before confidence was restored his fortune was practically swept away. In the midst of the disasters of 1887-8, which had ruined so many of the ranch kings of the southwest, not a scrap of Mr. Gunter's paper went to protest, all his large enterprises being financed with the skill and success of a great general. But in the departure from range to blooded cattle he left a familiar field, and met with his first reverse. In 1904 he again entered the Chickasaw Nation to begin life anew. As stated he has purchased and improved twenty acres against the town site of Minco, and is farming a large tract of land through tenants. Mr. Gunter is devoting himself with characteristic assiduity and intelligence to these interests, and his prospects are decidedly on the advance. He has little opportunity to devote to public or political matters, although he is already known as a stanch supporter of Governor Haskell's measures, except the state dispensary law. Mr. Gunter's parents were W. W. and Rosa (Geer) Gunter, his mother being a daughter of Levi Geer, a New England man who migrated to Georgia and there became a large slave owner. Mrs. Gunter, the first wife, died in 1868, the mother of the following: Julian L. and Nat, who died in San Antonio, Texas, in 1908, without family and possessed of a modest fortune. The second wife was Rosa Ligon, who became the mother of Horace and Samuel, of Cooke county, Texas, and Mabel, wife of R. M. Fields, of Gainesville, Texas. In November, 1884, Julian L. Gunter wedded Vallie Fitch, a daughter of James Fitch, who was a Texas pioneer. To this union have been born Lucille, Gladys and Nat., Jr. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html