SWAMP ANGEL is an incongruous name for a ranch in what most folks would consider a desert, but that's the name it carries nonetheless. Southeastern New Mexico rancher Giles Lee has been there since 1925, other than time out for World War II, an education, and some rodeoing.

Giles Lee Traces New Mexico
Roots Back More Than 75 Years

LOVINGTON, N.M. — Nobody seems to know how the ranch got its name. "It is said that the name Swamp Angel came from the misty, heavenly appearance of the swamp on early mornings when the humidity was high, the water warm and the air cool," says Giles Lee, who now has the Swamp Angel Ranch.

He thinks the groundwater here that has fed so many windmills in the area may have been closer to the surface in those days and may have resulted in a marshy area. Or, he says, buffalo hunters crossing the area after the buffalo were all gone may have dug a well and decided to call the watering hole The Swamp.

Records indicate that ex-buffalo hunters, looking for a way to make a living, would dig a well and camp to wait for a buyer to come along.

Two ex-buffalo hunters, Louis and Gyat (or perhaps Guyat) Faulkner, dug a series of wells in what is now Lea County. They included Clayton Wells, Chimney Wells, Neal Well, INK-bar, Ranger Lake and Dug Springs.

The grass was free in those days, Lee says. The well and a lot of hard work made a ranch.

"Of course," he adds with a grin, "good weather and a little luck didn't hurt."

Again, nobody seems to know for sure who first brought cattle to the ranch here. County records indicate Sanders W. Estes was in the area in 1889, with the Cross H brand that he used in New Mexico from 1886 through 1893.

In 1890, Thomas Coke Estes came into the area.

There is no record that Sanders Estes and Thomas Estes were related. Sanders Estes, born in 1861 in Hill County, Texas, was the son of a couple from Missouri. Thomas Estes, born in 1839 in Georgia, was a Civil War veteran who lost a leg and was captured by the Yankees during a skirmish at Thoroughfare Gap the day before the Second Battle of Manassas Junction, or Bull Run, in August 1862, in Virginia.

Lee thinks they may have been related, distant cousins perhaps, but acknowledges it is just a guess.

At any rate, both were in what was to become Lea County, New Mexico, living at or near the swamp in 1890.

By the mid-1890s, Sanders Estes apparently had returned to Texas to marry and begin a family. Thomas Estes filed an application for a post office, asking that it be named Swamp. By 1900, Thomas Estes had also returned to Texas and was living in Brown County.

The Swamp became a watering hole for the Hat Ranch, headquartered at Monument Springs.

William Barber of Carlsbad bought the place in 1902. Rom Holt bought it from Barber in 1915. Scharbauer Cattle Company bought the Swamp 10 years later.

"My Dad was with Scharbauer Cattle Company," Giles Lee says. "They came out here and bought this ranch up here in Lea County in 1925."

Dick Lee, Giles' father, partnered with Midland ranchers Clarence and John Scharbauer.

Giles Lee, still an infant at the time, had been born in Midland.

"We came out here in 1925," Lee says. "I was two years old."

That fall, they moved the first cattle here, 1500 head of heifer yearlings.

"My dad drove that herd up here," Lee says. "A little later, they brought 1500 more head of heifer yearlings up here. Bill Kelton brought them. That was Merle and Elmer's granddad. That's how come us up here."

Things here haven't changed much, Lee says.

"It was dry when they first got there, but the grass was about like it is now," he says. "It was green and trying to come. They did get some rain."

With some spring rains this year, the grass around the Swamp looks good.

"This old country's greening up now," Lee says. "If it'll keep coming, we'll grow some grass. We haven't grown any grass, just like a lot of people, in the last three or four years. It just rains enough to get by."

He says he's not fully stocked, but he hasn't had to really thin his herd out yet, either.

The carrying capacity here is about 15 head to the section.

"If it rained all time, and it was a good year, you could probably run 18 to 20 head, but that's too many year in and year out," Lee says. "What I try to do, if I have a pretty good year, I try to make it last two years. I stock it anywhere from 12 to 15 head to the section."

Lee started out with straight Hereford cattle, then got into crossbreeding.

"My main cross now is Hereford and Beefmaster," Lee says. "Right now, I'm using a lot of yellow bulls."

The Hereford-Charolais cross bulls seem to do well here.

Things seem to run easier now.

Back in 1927, Lee says, scab hit them, and they had to go to dipping. They dipped for 33 days.

The dipping vat is on the edge of the draw just north of the house. The well, thought to have been dug by the Faulkners, is down the draw in an old rock-lined tank northeast of the house.

About 100 yards northwest of the house are the remains of a rock house dugout.

Part of the house where Lee and his wife, Joie, live today dates to 1906.

"We've been up here a long time," Lee says. "I lived at the ranch until I was school age, then my dad built a home there in Lovington."

He didn't want Giles' mother to live out at the ranch during school and drive back and forth.

"There were no school buses or anything then," Lee says. "That old place we moved into was pretty primitive. Cowpunchers built it. It was built in 1906 of adobe."

After moving into town, Lee went to school in Lovington all through elementary, junior high and high school.

"Then I went over to New Mexico A&M, which is New Mexico State now," Lee says. "I started college, and I went over there a year and a half, I guess, through 1941 and into 1942. I joined the army in 1942, and was in the service three and a half years."

With the exception of some time in the Mariannas in the Pacific Campaign during World War II, much of Lee's time was spent at Roswell Army Air Corps Base.

It was during a Christmas dance at the air base that Lee meet his wife, Joie.

"He was a good dancer," she says.

After Staff Sgt. Lee mustered out of the service, he came back to Lovington, stayed around a while on the ranch, then decided to go back to school.

"I went back to New Mexico A&M," Lee says. "That was in 1946. That's when we started the Rodeo Club."

Lee had helped form the college rodeo club when he was at New Mexico State in 1942. He returned to it after the war. In those days, he says, there wasn't a national association. The National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association wasn't formed until 1949. New Mexico State was one of the charter members.

Lee stayed in school through 1946 and 1948.

"When I got out of college I rodeoed some," Lee says. "I joined the PRCA. When Joie and I first moved back here and we were first married, before we had any children, I rodeoed some. At that time, my best event, which wasn't very good, was bareback bronc riding."

He made the professional circuit for a few years.

"Cheyenne was the ultimate to me," Lee says. "Finally, when I got to where I could, I went up there several years."

His repertory is filled with rodeo stories.

"Back in 1948, I went to a rodeo in Tucumcari," Lee says. "Beutler Brothers put it on. I was bronc riding up there."

A couple were married in the arena during the rodeo.

"I didn't know at the time who they were," he says, "but it so happened, years and years later, the couple that married up there moved to Lovington, and he was cattle inspector down here, Sam Marrow and his wife."

After he got into team roping, he says he went down to Marfa, Texas, 30 years straight.

"I never did win it," he says. "I placed a lot, but I never could win it."

He says he always enjoyed going down there, but then he pretty well enjoyed every rodeo he went to.

"Cheyenne," he says. "As far as I'm concerned, that's the greatest rodeo there is."

Lee's been rodeoing since he was a kid. He still has a certificate from the Midland Chamber of Commerce, dated Sept. 9, 1938, congratulating him on being a prize winner at their Junior Cowboy Roping Contest at the Midland Rodeo.

"That was the first time I ever won anything," Lee says.

He won a pair of boots.

Rodeoing was a just a hobby, he says.

"If it wasn't, I would have starved to death," he grins. "I had a lot of fun."

Eventually, he changed events because of his family responsibilities, but he never has given up rodeoing.

"After the kids were born, I quit trying to ride bucking horses," Lee says. "I got to roping. I team roped a lot of years."

He says if he can get his knee straightened out, he'll be back on a horse with a rope in his hands.

"It hurts me to ride a horse right now," Lee says.

He's undergoing treatments on it now, and that seems to be helping.

From about 1959 to 1979, Lee hosted ropings here at the ranch. He built pens and put up lights.

"We had team ropings here at the ranch," Lee says. "At that time, team roping wasn't nearly as big as it is now. If I got 30 or 40 teams, it was a big roping."

He has a marker near the pens that are still there, naming those involved in getting the ropings started.

In 1984, he helped organize the Senior Championship Steer Roping Association in Amarillo with Buddy Cockrell of Pampa, Glen McMennamy of Amarillo and Tuffy Thompson of Tulia.

"I finally had to quit that and go back to team roping," Lee says. "I never did try to rodeo for a living. I just did it as a hobby. My main interest has been here on the ranch, but I've enjoyed all that roping, and the fact is Jim Cooper and I used to team up and rope together, Big Jim. And Troy Fort and I roped together. He was a World Champion Calf Roper back in the late 1940s."

Joie and Giles Lee were married in 1947. They lived in Las Cruces initially while Giles went to school.

In May 1948, they moved back to the ranch.

"Joie and I will have been married 55 years July 7," Lee says. "I've had a pretty good life, I'll tell you. We raised three daughters out here."

The oldest one, Libby Berry, married Danny Berry from Eunice, N.M. They have a ranch out west of Eunice. They have two children, Jessica and Shawn. Jessica is married to Jeff Chelton at Olney, Texas. They have a three year-old, Hannah.

"That's my great-granddaughter," Lee says proudly.

Shawn is at Alpine, Texas.

Lee's middle daughter is Becky Christmas, married to Brad Christmas.

"They live at Wagon Mound, N.M.," Lee says, "and they have three boys."

The oldest boy, Todd, went to New Mexico Military Institute at Roswell, then got a scholarship to Texas A&M. He graduated, took a commission in the Army, which he intends to make into a career, and married — all last August.

"Right now, he's at Fort Hood, Texas," Lee says.

Matt is the middle boy.

"He's at Las Cruces," Lee says. "He's supposed to be going to school at New Mexico State."

The youngest boy, Will, is at New Mexico Military Institute.

None of the Christmas boys rodeo.

Lee's youngest daughter, Mary Ann Ham, teaches school in San Angelo.

"She's got two little girls," Lee says. "The oldest one is Ashley. The younger one is Brooke."

Of all the grandkids, only Shawn Berry is involved in rodeoing.

"He's a good roper and sure does like it," Lee says. "His Daddy was a good roper. He's a good steer roper. We went to Cheyenne several times. I never did place up there, but Danny did. He's a natural steer roper."