Scofield Farms once home to blue-ribbon cattle ranch
Scofield Farms once home to blue-ribbon cattle ranch
Written by Karen R. Thompson Wednesday, 07 November 2007
“Through this impressive gate pass visitors on their way toward meeting one of the finest families in the cattle business – the Scofield family,” reads the photograph caption in a 1958 national publication. The Scofields bred registered Shorthorn cattle for more than six decades.
The distinctive red cattle were introduced to America from Scotland some time around 1783. They were first brought to Texas by Charles Goodnight in 1876 to improve the Longhorn stock.
Dr. John Scofield arrived in the Texas Hill Country, in an ox-drawn wagon from Kentucky in 1849. He married Mary Houston, a grand niece of Gen. Sam Houston. On his large ranch he liked the way the Shorthorn bulls were fairly docile, but greatly increased the weight of his calves.
Dr. John’s son, Frank Scofield, took over the ranch operation from his father and set out to improve the registered Shorthorns. One of his customers, Robert J. Kleberg of the King Ranch, developed the famous Santa Gertrudis breed, 5/8 Shorthorn and 3/8 Brahman, which was officially registered in 1940.
In 1934 Frank was appointed Director of the Texas Division of the Internal Revenue Service and moved his wife Katherine Mayer, and four children to Austin. He directed the IRS until 1954, when he started buying land north and northeast of Austin, just west of Pflugerville. His Shorthorn cattle operation was booming as was his reputation of having one of the finest registered Shorthorn herds in the United States.
Frank’s son Vernon was learning the cattle business, but since joining the Boy Scouts at age 12, scouting had become his passion. He earned the rank of Eagle Scout, and in the summer of 1937 was among the 27,232 Boy Scouts who attended the very first Jamboree in America. The event was in Washington D.C. and President Franklin D. Roosevelt reviewed “the troops.”
U. S. Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, along with J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, greeted the Boy Scouts at the Capitol. Following the Jamboree, Vernon boarded a ship for a two month trip to Europe. He visited Holland, England, France, Switzerland and Italy. Back at home he graduated from Austin High School in 1939 and entered Texas A & M College, where he was in the Corps. In 1943, Vernon married Audrey and they have two children, Nancy and John.
Vernon soon began his 20 years of active Army service, which included deployment to France and Germany. In Germany, he was directly involved with the Berlin Crisis, June 1948 through May 1949, when food and provisions were blocked from delivery by the Russians. Active Army duty was followed by 20 years of service in the Texas National Guard, from which he retired as a Colonel with forty years total service.
When Vernon returned to Austin from overseas, he took over management of the ranch and began purchasing any available land adjacent to the Scofield Ranch. Despite the subdivision’s current name, Scofield Farms, the area was always known as a ranch and never a farm. This was before IH 35 was built, and the Scofield Ranch soon totaled more than 2,000 acres.
Vernon actively managed the Scofield Ranch from 1946 until they began selling the property in the 1970s. Both Frank and Vernon served as president of the American Shorthorn Cattle Association. Vernon was also assistant director of the Texas Animal Health Commission. Vernon and his wife Audrey are retired in their Northwest Austin home. Undoubtedly, thousands of Shorthorn cattle across the United States have lineage to the Scofield Shorthorns that dominated the land along Wells Spring Branch Creek for so many decades.
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