The T-Bar Ranch

THOMAS

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 1/16/2009 at 12:32:36

Maquoketa Community Press, October 13, 1979.

The T-Bar Ranch Now Wildwood Acres-

Don Thomas purchased the near-thousand acres of tangled wilderness located along the north side of the Maquoketa river east of Canton and known as the “old Brown farm.” He cut the hazelbrush, built fences and added a nearby farm or two for a better balance of tillable land to hilly pasture and timber.

All this was stocked with a top quality Angus herd, headed by a $45,000 (1960 dollars) Eileenmere sire. An old farmhouse was rebuilt, enlarged, and furnished by an interior decorator. It overlooked both the Maquoketa river and a new artificial lake filled with bass and panfish.

Thomas divided his time between his Michigan interests and the T-Bar and was a good host to his Maquoketa friends and others who came to visit or buy cattle.

The house was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. The formative years of the T-Bar proved to be one of the valleys, instead of one of the peaks, in the fullblood beef business.

Within a few years both the cattle and land were sold. And today the nucleus of the T-Bar is now known as Wildwood Acres.