John Sparks

John Sparks

John Sparks (born August 30, 1843 in Winston County , Mississippi , † May 22, 1908 ) was an American cattle farmer and governor of the US state of Nevada from 1902 until his death . Sparks, also known as Honest John , was - like his predecessor Reinhold Sadler - a cattle farmer and his political rise shows the decline of mining and the rise of cattle breeding in Nevada.

biography

John Sparks' family was one of the so-called new land families , who specialized in reclaiming land on the border and then selling it when the settlement of the area became more advanced. His family followed the Arkansas border and moved on to Texas in 1857 . By then she had already achieved modest wealth. She began raising cattle in Texas and John Sparks became a trained cowboy .

In 1861, Sparks joined the Texas Rangers , possibly to avoid being drafted into the Confederate Army . His unit had the task of protecting settlers from the Comanche . At the American Civil War Sparks did not participate. After the war, he was one of the cowboys who rounded up Texan longhorns . First he worked for John Meyers, later he teamed up with his brother. In 1872 Sparks married Rachel Knight, with whom he had two daughters, Maude and Rachel.

In 1873, Sparks bought a large herd of cattle in Texas and drove them to Wyoming, where he started a ranch in the Chugwater River valley near Cheyenne . The following year he sold the ranch with their 2,100 cattle to the Swan Brothers. He then founded a number of ranches along the North Platte River , quickly selling each one and investing the purchase price in the next. He made further investments in a bank in Georgetown , Texas (his wife's hometown), where he also built a house. His wife Rachel died in 1879, and he married her half-sister Nancy Knight in 1880.

At that time, there were no vacant pastureland east of the Rockies, so Sparks turned his gaze west. Together with the Texan John Tinnin, he bought the HD Ranch in the Thousand Springs Valley north of Elko , Nevada in 1881 . In 1883, Sparks-Tinnin, a company they founded, bought all of Jasper Harrell's ranches for $ 900,000. These ranches consisted of approximately 30,000 cattle grazed over large areas of Nevada and Idaho . Very little of this pastureland had been taken possession of. Sparks and Tinnin each bought small areas around a water source and then denied other workers in the area the use of the water. In this way they controlled large areas of public land that did not belong to them. If there was a piece of land that Sparks-Tinnin wanted to purchase, an employee applied for a lease to establish a farm and then sold it to Sparks-Tinnin. In its prime, the company is believed to have owned 6% of the land from Nevada.

In 1885 Sparks moved to his 6.64 km² Alamo Ranch in the Steamboat Springs area south of Reno . Here he assembled a herd of purebred Hereford cattle . He quickly became famous at cattle auctions because he was willing to pay extremely high sums for pedigree Hereford cattle . By acquiring cattle from other breeders instead of his own, he managed to set up a herd that was quickly considered unbeatable at animal shows. Sparks sold less good cattle, thereby helping Hereford cattle to become the dominant breed of cattle in Nevada. He also raised bison and deer on his Alamo ranch.

Sparks-Tinnin's business expanded during the 1880s until, like all other western cattle ranchers, it suffered a serious setback as a result of the harsh winter of 1889/1890. During this winter the temperature in Elko sank to −41 ° C and from January to March a high blanket of snow covered the pastureland. At that time, all large cattle farms kept their cattle on the pastures all year round without additional feeding in winter. That is why many cattle died in the pasture that winter. It was reported that dead cattle could be walked over a hundred miles along the Humboldt River in the spring of 1890 . Cattle carcasses piled up in front of bridges in Elko and caused flooding. Sparks later admitted that of his 45,000 herd, only 15,000 survived. He also claimed that 90% of the surviving animals had white faces, typical of Hereford cattle.

After the winter of 1889/1890, Tinnin was no longer able to pay the mortgage in favor of Jasper Harrell, who took over his stake in the company. Sparks-Tinnin was renamed Sparks-Harrell. Sparks also ran into economic trouble over his spending on the Alamo Ranch and losses from mining speculation. In 1901 he sold his stake in Sparks-Harrell to Jasper Harrell.

After an unsuccessful run in the Senate election , Sparks ran for the Silver Democratic Party with success in the election for governor of Nevada. In 1906 he was re-elected. He died in office on May 22, 1908; when he died he was financially ruined and the Alamo Ranch was sold to pay off his debts.

literature

• Robert Sobel and John Raimo (Eds.): Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789–1978. Volume 3, Meckler Books, Westport, 1978. 4 volumes.

Web links

• John Sparks in the National Governors Association (English)
• John Sparks in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• The Political Graveyard (English)
• The governors of Nevada