The Story of the White Buffalo

  It was in search of the buffalo that J. Wright Mooar, his brother John, and their party of hunters first camped on the banks of Deep Creek in the year 1876.  Those hunters were hardy men, aged beyond their youthful years by blizzards and sandstorms, stampeded and sneak attack.  They take their place in the history of the nation and Scurry County - coming after the Indian, the missionary, the explorer and the trader - and clearing the way for the cowman and settler.

No one knows how many buffalo roamed over North America before the white man came.  The best estimates range from 60 to 75 million head.  As late as 1830, after the hunters began their kills, there were 40 million.  By 1883 less than one thousand head of buffalo were left in the United States.

The buffaloes were the Indian's most important commodity.  He ate its meat, fresh and dried; he used its hide for clothing, blankets, robes and for making teepees.  He used the bones as tools, the sinew as thread, and the stomach as a water container.  When the buffalo were gone, the Indian had little choice but to retreat to the reservations.

J. Wright Mooar claimed to have shot 22,000 head himself.  Buffalo hunting was a business and an adventure.  He believed that the slaughter was necessary for the civilization of the West.

When in his early twenties, Mooar saved enough money chopping wood to outfit three wagons and assemble his own hunting and skinning crew.  At first only the meat was sold.  But J. Wright sent some hides to his older brother, John W., in New York, John found a market for the hides.  This became a lucrative business, and by 1872 John had joined his brother in Dodge City, Kansas.  J. Wright continued to do the hunting, while John transacted the marketing of the hides and meat.

But it was October 7, 1876 that became a day to remember...about ten o'clock that morning the Mooar outfit pitched camp in the banks of Deep Creek (approximately ten miles northwest of the present Snyder townsite).  Mooar rode off to scout the country.  It was almost sunset, as he headed back for camp, that he saw it!  Against the horizon was a gleaming white creature, grazing contentedly in the midst of a small herd of buffaloes.  Having killed one in Kansas, Wright immediately knew it to be a rare Albino, the first he had seen in Texas.  Mooar hurried to camp where his men were about to eat supper.  He needed some help.  Time was short and night was coming on.  He couldn't wait until morning - the beast might be gone.  (It was customary to make the kills before midday, in order that the skinners would have time to do their work before nightfall). Mooar called to Dan Dowd to get out his skinning knives and come with him!  The two men slipped down the bank of the creek and moved cautiously toward the herd.  When they got within shooting range, Wright and Dan crawled out of the creek bed and crouched in the grass.  Wright rested his left elbow on the ground, using his hand as a prop for the heavy rifle.  He took aim - fired - and the white animal fell.  Wright had his trophy!!

But the firing stampeded the herd.  They thundered toward Dan and Wright.  Quickly, Wright shot three more buffaloes.  The herd turned away just in time to miss the two men.

Because of J. Wright, Scurry County lays claim to the killing of the White Buffalo as one among only seven in the United States.  The hide Mooar took that day was tanned and kept.  Mooar showed it to visitors as long as he lived.  Today, his granddaughter, Julia May McDonnell Hays, displays the hide in a glass case at her ranch - not far from the site of the shooting.  The entire adventure lasted only a few minutes, but the memory of it remained with Dan and Wright the rest of their lives.  It reaches out to all today who stop and see the replica of the White Buffalo on the Snyder Square.

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W.H. (Pete) Snyder

In the early 1870s, buffalo hunters camped on Deep Creak and built tents and half-dugouts on the creek banks, using buffalo hides. The settlement was called "Hide Town" and a few other unfavorable names because it was rough and tough in the early years.  In 1878, a Dutch freighter and trader named William Henry (Pete) Snyder came to the area and started a trading post on the creek bank.

He stayed there until a small frame building was erected for him on what is now the southeast corner of the Snyder square.  This business was the beginning of the county seat of Scurry County named for this first merchant.  On November 21, 1885 the post office was established and the town was officially named Snyder.

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J. Wright Mooar

Born of Scotch Ancestors in Vermont on August 10, 1851, J. Wright Mooar was hunting buffalo in Kansas by the age of twenty years old.  At first the buffalo carcass was valuable for only the meat.  The fresh meat was sent to towns where it was sold for three cents a pound.  It was not long before the hides were on the market.  J. Wright sent some flint hides to his older brother, John W. Mooar in New York.  John found a market for them at $3.50 each.  John quit his job in New York and joined J. Wright in Kansas City, Kansas, and the brothers entered into a partnership in 1872.  J. Wright did most of the hunting, and John transacted the business affairs.  In the next eight years J. Wright estimated they killed and marketed over 22,000 buffalo for meat and hides.

Deep Creek in Scurry County was a source for water for both the buffalo and the hunters who slaughtered them.  The Mooar expedition came form Fort Griffin with their wagons and hunting equipment and camped on the banks of the creek.  On the afternoon of October 7, 1876, he shot a rare albino buffalo near the creek, an event that has become well known.