6,000 Miles of Fence

The fabulous XIT Ranch has been celebrated in song, story, and serious history. This book of reminiscences of old XIT cowmen puts on record the everyday life of the individuals who made the ranch run.

During her years as a ranch wife, Cordia Sloan Duke wrote a diary; excerpts from her written recordings are here brought together with the reminiscences of the ranch hands. Their forthright, yet picturesque, discussion of ranching hardships and dangers dissipates Hollywood and TV glamorizing, and instead they relate in honest cowboy language what actually happened inside the XIT’s 6,000 miles of fence.

“Joe Frantz, one of Texas’ most able writers, has taken the diary of Mrs. Cordia Sloan Duke, widow of XIT’s division manager, plus the terse and pithy reminiscences she collected from former XIT cowboys, and turned them into a unique, readable and realistic account of the cowboy’s way of life.”—New York Times Book Review

“This book, with all the merit of being an organized and beautifully presented story, is more than a social history; it is source material, resting on the firm bedrock of first-hand accounts. Hence, while it joins in many libraries and collections several shelves of other cowboy books, it will always be on the top shelf with a select few that have made real contributions to the history of the American West. As a man should be measured by his own standards, and an event in terms of its own time, a book should be evaluated in relation to its purpose. By this standard, as well as by comparison with other books in its library classification, 6,000 Miles of Fence is a success.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly