This is a story that was originally written by Zintia Parsons Fowler, and it took place in 1889. It was repeated by Joanne Christensen in her book ghost stories of Texas.
During the time Following the Civil War and before fences were put up dividing land on the Blackland Prairie that reaches from Canada down through Texas, cattle were herded to the railroads and to cattle sales throughout the Great plains.
When these herds were panicked and out of control they would stampede and a cattle stampede is a terrifying thing. Thousands of cattle side by side rushing in one direction in fear.
There is a place called Stampede Mesa. It is a big grassy flat 200-acre mesa that is above the White River in Crosby County Texas. On the side where the mesa met the river was a hundred foot drop. In the Fall of 1889, a trail boss and his cowboys planned to stop at the mess up with their 1,500 head of cattle they were driving. When they arrived, however, they found a small time rancher already camped there. He had about 40 head of cattle. Within minutes, all the cattle were mixed together and the 40 were swallowed up by the 1,500. This made the small-time rancher really angry and he demanded that his cattle be cut out of the larger herd immediately. Now the Trail Boss of the big herd and his co-workers were tired from a long day’s ride, however and didn’t really want to take those orders from the angry old rancher.
The Trail Boss promised to take care of the situation first thing in the morning. The old man didn’t like that answer and felt pretty put out by this intrusion of a giant herd of cattle and a bunch of ranch hands. He was after all just sitting there quietly with his little herd of cattle watching the sunset when they arrived. It was a peaceful moonlit night, and the herds settled in easily.
The quiet was short-lived, however, because close to midnight, the cattle roared into a dreaded stampede. Something spooked them from the side of the mesa opposite the river which caused them to run toward the river and over the steep bluff. Two ranch hands tried to stop the Stampede and reroute the cattle but they were swallowed up by the terrifying Stampede. All but 300 cattle fell to their deaths, and the surviving ranch hands had an idea of what caused the sudden stampede.
They had seen the disgruntled old Rancher waving a blanket and whooping and causing the catastrophe. So, the Cowboys went and found the old rancher. Tied him to his horse, blindfolded the horse and the man, and sent the horse running off the bluff and into the pile of perished cattle.
It is believed that the disgruntled Rancher still haunts Stampede Mesa because it was not long after that catastrophe that trail riders reported having problems with their cattle at the mesa. the animals would become skittish for no particular reason. On a few occasions, stampedes started mysteriously, and disaster was averted only because of some quick action on the part of ranch hands. Some ranchers claimed to have seen the ghost of a blindfolded man on a horse charging at their herd, others believe they saw the ghosts of steers among their cattle. and few were willing to not admit that there was a strange, unexplainable and undeniably bad feeling out there. and that’s when the name Stampede Mesa began.
