HOMESTEAD: Shannons left legacy (2024)

Family's estate was left in trust to create hospital

By Jerry Lackey

Founded: In 1889 by John Moore Shannon and A.F. Clarkson.

Current Owners: Shannon Trust.

Location: Crockett, Scurry, Mitchell and Garza counties.

Livestock: Sheep, cattle and horses.

William K. Shannon was born in County Kerry, Ireland, in 1792. He and his first wife, Catherine Wallace, had five sons. When Catherine died, Shannon married Mary Moore in Ireland on the eve of leaving for America. There were five children born to the second marriage: James, Wm. K., Edward, J.M. and Thomas.

John Moore "J.M." Shannon (pictured) was born in New Orleans on May 15, 1846. He married Margaret Alexandrina Campbell (born May 8, 1854, in Edinburgh, Scotland) in 1874 at the home of Robert Burns (the poet) in Ayr, Scotland. They had no children.

John Moore Shannon attended grade and high school in New Orleans and worked on his father's plantation until the Civil War broke out. After the war, he returned to the plantation to find it destroyed and the family reduced to poverty.

Except for J.M., the family went to Australia. He spent some time in California becoming interested in the sheep business and learning the art of shearing the woollies. Eventually, he went to Australia, too. There, he visited relatives and worked on their sheep stations.

J.M. Shannon met Marguerite E. Campbell, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, on board an Australian ship from New Zealand to San Francisco. They were married in Scotland two years later in 1874 and returned to America, living in Kansas and New Mexico before locating in Big Spring, where he worked for the railroad.

According to some accounts, Shannon arrived at Big Spring with $2.65 in his pocket.

A few years later, the couple moved to a ranch near Colorado City where he worked as a sheepherder on a share basis. It was there in 1882 that Shannon met A.F. Clarkson.

"Shannon was a rough and rugged Scotchman, bearded as a Viking and towering near 6-foot-6 in his booted feet. His long arms swung his massive hands in low but powerful rhythm, almost to his knees, as we walked," Clarkson noted in an interview at the time.

Clarkson and Ben Griffith were freighters with a route starting in the Texas Panhandle and stretching south to San Angelo. They operated two teams of oxen. Each team of six yoked oxen pulled two wagons; one trailed the other.

They averaged 15 miles per day, according to a paper written by Suzanne Campbell, with Angelo State University's West Texas Collection.

Shannon joined Clarkson and Griffith in the fencing business. Their first fencing job was for the Snyder Brothers of Georgetown, who owned land to the east of the XIT Ranch in the Texas Panhandle, known as the largest ranch in the world. It took one year for the trio to enclose three pastures, each 9 miles square with cedar posts and four strands of barbed wire.

In 1885, Shannon was awarded the contract to build 600 miles of fence on the southern division of the XIT (syndicate) Ranch, known as the Yellow House Division.

In all, some 3 million acres that made up the XIT had been traded by the 16th Texas Legislature in 1879 to finance a new state Capitol building in Austin. The plan was to fence the acreage and sell it off piecemeal, according to the Handbook of Texas Online.

The XIT Ranch fencing job was completed in 18 months at 16 hours a day and working seven days per week. The charge was $110 per mile, according to one biographer.

In 1889, Shannon purchased his first property of record in Archer County for $1.25 to $2.00 per acre. Later, the Shannons acquired the 10,880-acre Whittle Ranch in Crockett County. The headquarters ? half dugout, half shack ? was 25 miles northwest of Ozona.

By 1895, the Shannon holdings in Crockett County were reported to be 256,000 acres stocked with 5,000 sheep, 8,000 head of cattle and a large number of horses. Also, Shannon owned real estate in Colorado City and scattered throughout Mitchell County.

Shannon bought one of the first Model T Fords in Crockett County. When the car arrived by train, there were no operating instructions. The couple started to San Angelo at a high speed.

The story was told that Mrs. Shannon said, "If we keep going at this rate of speed, we'll be in San Angelo before lunch." He said, "If I don't figure out a way to stop this thing, we'll be in hell before breakfast!"

Shannon was one of the first to envision the potential of the sheep industry in West Texas. In 1909 he financed and served as director of the Wool Grower's Central Storage Co., which established San Angelo as the "Wool Capital of the World."

"In spite of his remarkable business prowess and his skill and dedication as a rancher, it is Shannon's image as a ?thrifty' eccentric that is most often remembered," writes Campbell. "Legends and tales about making it difficult to discover the real J.M. Shannon." Noted Texas author J. Frank Dobie once said about Shannon that "he'd skin a flea for its hide and tallow."

"According to a popular anecdote, Shannon felt little compunction to throw away money on such luxuries as new clothes. With his head crowned by a shapeless, greasy hat, Shannon stood less than resplendent in breeches held together by safety pins or mesquite thorns."

Dobie told the story about Shannon coming upon a traveling salesman camped on the Concho River. He offered the traveler some coffee, which he accepted. In turn, the salesman told Shannon he would pay him a dollar if he would unhitch, water and re-hitch his team of horses.

Later in San Angelo, the salesman went to a bank to cash a check. Visiting with the bank president, he told about a ill-clothed character he paid a dollar to care for his horses. "That," said the bank president, "was Mr. Shannon, one of the richest men in West Texas."

The Shannons' last permanent home was on the fourth floor of the St. Angelus Hotel (current site of Wells Fargo Bank) in San Angelo. Shannon died May 28, 1928, and Mrs. Shannon died Dec. 13, 1931.

In accordance with her will and their previously agreed wishes, since they had no heirs, the bulk of their estate was left in trust to establish the Shannon West Texas Memorial Hospital, which is now the Shannon Medical Center.

Oil and gas was discovered on the Shannon land a few years after the couple's death, leaving the hospital benefits from the estate estimated at nearly $80 million.