Monroe Brown Sawyer, rancher, one of five children of William M. and
Catherine (Thayre) Sawyer, was born on September 12, 1861, on the family farm
near Georgetown, Texas. On July 25, 1863, William Sawyer, his brother Costen,
his brother-in-law George Thayre, and five companions were killed by Confederate
militiamen near Bandera while traveling to Mexico in an alleged attempt to avoid
conscription. In March 1881, at the age of nineteen, Monroe Sawyer enlisted in
Company C of the Frontier Battalionqv of Texas Rangersqv under Capt. George W.
Arrington.qv During his eighteen months as a ranger, Sawyer saw service at
Tascosa and Camp Roberts, Arrington's headquarters in Blanco Canyon. Arrington
ever afterward regarded him as "one of my best Rangers." Sawyer was mustered out
in September 1882 and returned to Williamson County, where he and his brothers
began building a substantial herd of cattle. Sawyer married Rebecca Elizabeth
Skeen, daughter of a German immigrant farmer, on October 9, 1884. After the
family cattle business grew, Sawyer invested in land farther west. He moved his
part of the herd and his growing family to Runnels County in 1888, then in 1892
to Howard County, where they endured a short period of drought and recession.
Monroe and Rebecca Sawyer had three sons and ten daughters, one of whom died
young.
In 1901 Sawyer purchased twenty-one sections of choice ranchland
in Terry County, southwest of the site of present Brownfield. The following
spring he moved his cattle and family to the new site, on which he erected a
spacious five-room ranchhouse. He hired eight cowboys to look after his cattle,
which at one time numbered 2,500 Herefords. When Brownfield was established as
the permanent county seat, the Sawyers became leaders in that community. After
the Santa Fe Railroad extended its line to Brownfield in 1911, Sawyer allotted
his vast landholdings among his children and turned the remainder into farms,
which he rented or hired people to work. Arguing correctly that the county's
sandy soil helped conserve moisture, he had his employees turn under green cane
stalks on land he wished to put in feed. He believed that with proper
cultivation West Texas soils would grow more grain than the higher-priced lands
in the Midwest and that Terry County cotton production would surpass that of the
fertile Central Texas farmlands. As a result Sawyer built up extensive
agricultural holdings that at one time numbered sixty-seven farms.
During
the 1920s and 1930s Sawyer's kindness and generosity to others, even at the
height of the Great Depression,qv became legendary throughout West Texas, as did
his annual family gatherings on holidays and special occasions. He died of a
heart attack at his home in Brownfield on March 19, 1941, and was buried in the
community cemetery. He was survived by his wife, twelve children, forty-three
grandchildren, and thirteen great-grandchildren. The old Sawyer ranchhouse,
remodeled over the years and designated by the Texas Historical Survey Committee
(now the Texas Historical Commissionqv) as a historical landmark in 1970, is
still owned by Sawyer heirs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Allen Anderson, "Monroe
Brown and Rebecca Skeen Sawyer: Pioneers of the South Plains," West Texas
Historical Association Year Book 60 (1984). Cattleman, May 1941. J. Marvin
Hunter, "A Bandera County Tragedy," Frontier Times, August 1924.
H. Allen
Anderson