Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
When people think of the buffalo hunters of the Old West it’s likely they think first of Buffalo Bill Cody. But our area had history with a real buffalo hunter who was quietly legendary. His name was Thomas Leander “George” Causey
While history records William F. Cody as indeed having hunted the American Bison for a living, he made a lot more trading on the name of Buffalo Bill and organizing the greatest traveling Wild West show of its time.
In a book by Causey’s nephew V.H. Whitlock, the author quotes his uncle’s partner Jeff Jefferson as saying, “Causey killed more buffaloes on one winter at Yellow House than Buffalo Bill killed in his entire lifetime. But Causey didn’t have Ned Buntline for a publicity agent.”
Causey was born in Illinois and became a freighter, hauling supplies to western Kansas by mule team as the Civil War came to a close. When that business dried up because of the railroad he began hunting buffalo in the Hay City and Fort Dodge areas. Soon the buffalo had been hunted out of the northern plains and Causey moved south of the Arkansas River and eventually on into Texas, where he is said to have participated in the second battle of Adobe Walls that finally removed the remaining Comanche bands on the landscape.
It was said that by 1874 Causey had the largest outfit of buffalo hunters ever assembled. The group followed the remaining herds south and soon set up headquarters at Yellow House Canyon, near present day Littlefield, Texas. From there they pursued the last remaining herds in the U.S. on the Llano Estacado in west Texas and eastern New Mexico. It is said that Causey killed the last free-roaming herd in 1882 northwest of Midland.
Causey, realizing the outcry over the buffalo’s near extermination never would estimate how many buffalo he had killed. Those that worked with him said the number was likely around 40,000, with over 15,000 skins recorded in just the years 1876-1878.
He sold his holdings at Yellow House to Jim Newman and moved west to Lea County, where he built a large home and store between Lovington and Hobbs. He and two of his brothers had an operation where they rounded up wild mustangs to sell. They also secured a well drilling rig as they were putting in a well and windmill at their new place in Lea County and were soon hiring out to drill wells for ranchers and homesteaders all over the area.
But where did he play into Roosevelt County history?
Before he sold out to Newman he had regularly shipped hides and meat across the plains from Yellow House to Portales Springs and on to Fort Sumner creating the first real road through the sand hills with heavy oxen drawn wagons.
Though he never lived there, the Roosevelt County town of Causey is likely named for him, though there are stories that dispute that. It’s also very likely that he drilled some of the early wells in Roosevelt County.
Finally, his last chapter on the plains was written in Roosevelt County. In 1902 while on a mustang roundup his horse stumbled and rolled over the top of the tough old buffalo hunter and he reportedly lay out on the prairie for two days before cowboys were able to get a wagon to his location to take him to the nearest hospital in Roswell.
Causey traveled east to St. Louis for treatment for his critically injured spine. No relief for his condition was found and he returned to New Mexico where he liquidated his holdings in Lea County to pay hospital bills and bought a place near Kenna where he committed suicide the following year.
Buffalo hunters in Western movies are often portrayed as filthy drunkards that are the scum of the Earth. Native Americans might not think much of him either. But Causey, at least in his biographies, was seen as a well-liked individual. He must have been tough as a buffalo hide as well.
Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:
