The Story Behind the Name...

It all started last week when Me, Mama and Little Britches went riding around north/west of our house, taking pictures.  After stopping and taking a T.O.N of pictures(that are being saved for another post ;) ), we made our way down the long prairie road to the Borroum pens.  After snapping these pictures from the road....

....We headed for the house.  But the next evening we went back and I took these pictures:

Looking down the chute

Me standing in the chute

Now we've got tons of cattle pens around here with typical names like "Dog Creek Pens" or "The Robinson Pens"(named after the pastures they're in), but the name Borroum kinda sticks out.  

So I set out to find why they're called The Borroum Pens!  I dug around through our books and found Osage County Profiles and History of Ranching the Osage, looking for the name Borroum.  And I found it!  

In Osage County Profiles, it says: 

Jim L. Borroum

My father, Jim L. Borroum, first came to this area in 1900.  He was the third generation of Borroums ranching in Texas and old Mexico, but the pastures of Indian Territory looked very much more promising than South America, where he was planning to go.  He was running a place south of Chautauqua Springs Kansas when he and my mother, May Lewelen of Cedar Vale, were married in 1905.  Later, when Oklahoma became a state, he leased and bought land at the location of our present ranch, which my husband, Lincoln Robinson, has run since 1940.  The time and trials of the earliest settlers were past, but Oklahoma was still rough, tough, Western country.  There may not have been “range wars”, but “lease wars” were waged freely, bitterly, and sometimes, fatally.  Cowboys still carried guns and were expected to use them if necessary.  Several cowboy were poisoned at the ranch when strychnine  was put in the bucket of drinking water that stood by the back door.  Only the cook’s command that the  victims eat lard saved their lives.  Jim Borroum was a director of the Texas and Southwestern Cattlemen’s Associations for a great many years and through it promoted Osage County as the best possible cattle country.  In 1928, saying he had been  broke four times in his life and didn’t want to be again,  he stopped buying cattle and handled cattle for the King Ranch of Texas, bring from ten to twenty thousand head of steers to Osage pastures every summer until his death in 1936.  Jim and May Borroum had three children, Llewllyn, May and Elizabeth, and six grandchildren; Elizabeth Ann, Margaret, and Jim Robinson, Mike, George and Patricia Snedden.

Submitted by May Borroum Robinson

And it also had two pictures of Jim & May:

Now in History of Ranching the Osage, it gave a list of the pastures that Jim leased:

1902 Osage Leases

J.L. Borroum,

Cedar Vale, Kansas

Pasture Numbers:

61, 70, 109

Pasture Names

Stich Buck Creek(8,971 Acres)

Pappan Mud Creek(5,280 Acres

                                                                           North Pugh(8,251 Acres)

And had another little story about him...

Jim L. Borroum was born in Texas during 1875.  In 1900 he came to Cedar Vale, Kansas from Texas where his family was in the cattle business.  With the backing of R. R. Russell of San Antonis, he was able to lease land in the Osage south of Chautauqua Springs.  Later he leased Osage land south of Cedar Vale in the Carpenter Buck Creek, Carpenter West Dog Creek and Carpenter Sand Creek pastures.  He became a director of the Liberty National Back of Cedar Vale.  In 1905 he married May Lewelen of Cedar Vale, who was born in 1883, the daughter of Madison and Mary Wallace Lewelen.  Jim Borroum died April 26, 1936, his wife, May, died in 1944.

And told about his daughter Elizabeth..  

She is the daughter of Jim and May Borroum.  She married George Sneeden, and after the death of her father, she operated his 13,000 acre ranch in northern Osage County.  Later her brother-in-law, Lincoln Robinson, would operate the ranch.

Then told about his son-in-law who later operated the Borroum(Robinson) Ranch: 

He was born April 14^th, 1909 near Boston, Massachusetts.  On November 25^th, 1936 he married May Borroum daughter of Jim and May Lewelen Borroum at Cedar Vale, Kansas.  They moved to Cedar Vale in 1940 to help operate the Jim Borroum Ranch.  They are the parents of Elizabeth, Margaret and James.  May died January 29^th, 1982 and the ranch was inherited by Lincoln and the children.

Now the Robinson ranch is where my friend Kate lives. And there are a set of pens near Kate's house where all These Pictures were taken.

All that country up there is where Jim Borroum ran his cattle and probably rode his horse many a mile across that prairie... 

So that's the story of where the  Borroum pens got their name.  

Gotta love living in the heart of God's Country and being surrounded by Cowboy history ;)