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GEORGE LUCKEY
SAN ANTONIO LIGHT Jan 24th 1977
Rites Set for Famed Cattleman
Services for E. George Luckey, pioneer
cattle feeder, politician and confidante
of presidents, will be held at 11
a.m. Tuesday at Porter Loring Mortuary.
Luckey, who turned down numerous
offers to serve in President Truman's
cabinet, was a powerful political
figure in both Texas and California.
A native of the Texas Hill Country
community of Harper, Luckey was Ihe
first successful cattle feeder in Texas
to use milo insiead of corn, pioneering
an industry that is now a multi-billion
dollar industry in the Lone Star Stale.
Luckey, 73, died Saturday.
San Antonians were inirodoced to
grain fed beef hy Luckey in 1950 when
he set up his fcedlot on 2,000 acres in
West Bexar County and operated T
Cross Cattle Co.
He had previously pioneered Ihe
feedlot industry in California's Imperial
Valley, having started in the cattle
business during the early 1930s.
Luckey was serving as a state senator
in California in 1948 during the
Trurnan-Dewey campaign for president.
Luckey .organized and financed a
train "whistle stop" lour of Southern
California for Truman, which rallied
the support to put Truman in as president.
After Ihe 1948 campaign, Truman
offered Luckey (he secretary of agriculture's
position and later the ambassadorship
10 Mexico. Luckey lurned
both down since he was already planning
his now feedlot venture into
Bexar County.
Luckey also lurned down efforts lo
run for governor of California and retired
from political office.
He continued to support Ihe Democraiic
party in both California and
Texas, and was called "Senator" by
Iriends and acquaintances, including
President Johnson.
Luckey and his wife, M a r j o r i e
Ruth, resided in the same suite in Ihe
St. Anthony Hotel for the past 28
years, but ajso maintained a house in
California.
When Luckey told cattle feeder
friends he was establishing a feedlot
near San Antonio, he was told that
Texans ate only grass fed beef and
ihere was no adequate supply of corn
in the area.
"Some of the people who laughed
at me were the same ones who said ii
was loo hot in the Imperial Valley 10
feed cattle." Luckey recalled.
Luckey proved correct in his assessments
of sorghum as an excellent
grain for entile and thai San Anlonians
and other Texans would prefer
grain fed beef.
He sold his feedlol in l!)7.'i, bui kept
the feedlol under lease for another
year.
Survivors i n c I u d e his widow: a
daughter, Mrs. Julie Munoz. Los Angeles;
a brother, Fred. San Antonio,
and one grandson.
He was a fellow of the Harry S.
Truman L i b ra ry in Independence,
Mo., and active in numerous local
civic organizations, including the San
Antonio Livestock Exposition and the
American Legion.
Graveside services will be held at 3
p.m. Tuesday at Mt. Zion Cemetery in
Bertram.
Thursday, April 09, 1964 San Antonio, Texas
Profile of » cattleman: Told by a
national magazine a few years back,
the George Luckey
story known to the
nation is the one
about how the California
senator masterminded
the Truman
presidential campaign
there how Luckey
was the No. 1 political
power behind the
scenes in that state
. . . but the George
Luckey story closer
to the_ hearts of San
Antonians is t h e
chronicle of his move to the Alamo
City . . . how Luckey has become a
leader in the cattle business in the
heart of a beef-minded state . . . Sunday
afternoon we were invited to the
Luckey Cattle Co. and ranch, about five
miles from Lackland out Highway 90
West ... our guide for the tour was
the senator himself, who drove us about
the 1,500-acre spread, pointed out such
points of interest as the man-made
lakes he's created and kitchen-clean
feed lots where he often has as many
as 15,500 steers fattening . . . this was
the chapter of the George Luckey
story we wanted to learn — how a onetime
California politician had become
one of the most astute cattlemen in
Texas.
The T-Cross brand: Luckey's company
is sometimes called the T-Cross
Cattle Co., so named after the brand
he uses . . . the senator explained the
T-Cross was an old brand he used in
California, then brought to Texas . . .
we were interested to learn, however,
he no longer brands his cattle but now
uses plastic tags instead.
The home for the steers: Refurbishing
acreage for a compact ranch and
feed lot operation amounts to a lot
more than merely supplying cattle
grazing land ... at the George Luckey
ranch, a 55-employe organization, we
saw his private feed mill (he raises
about one-half of all his feed)
nine 4-million-pound silos . . . two big
It-wheel trucks (for cattle and grain)
four stone bams . . . a machine shop
and equipment shed (one fulltime
mechanic and two helpers) . . . pushbutton
electronic loading and unloadind
devices for grain trucks, including
a hydraulic lift which can raise a big
grain truck and dump out its contents
. . . and on Luckey's drawing board is
a huge dehydrating plant, nearly ready
to be added to the feed lot facilities
. . . yep, there's a lot more to ranching
these days than just grazing a few
steers.
Personnel roster: Luckey's "ranch
hands" fall in numerous categories,
ranging from top craftsmen in animal
husbandry to unskilled laborers . . .
but the job George gets a twinkle in
his eye about is what he describes as
his "pistol-packing night watchman."
Changing mother earth: Luckey has
literally changed the face of the earth
on his ranch west of town to make the
terrain ideal for his cattle business
. . . he altered the course of a creek
to make it flow into his lakes . . . he
dredged out creek bottoms, scraped off
the tops of hills, leveled off the topography
. . . spending about $700 an
acre for al) this work, Luckey reminisces,
"Some folks thought we were
nuts to spend so much time and money,
and for a while I wasn't sure they
weren't right."
Wafer everywhere: Acreage at the
ranch is completely irrigated . . . to
make this possible, Luckey used bulldozers
to move great masses of earth
to an already high point on the ranch,
then from it excavated a reservoir 750
feet long, 350 feet wide and 52 feet
deep . . . from the reservoir water can
flow, as directed, in three directions
. . . the shaded pens in his feed lots
have concrete feed troughs and concrete
roadways for the catle to stand
on while feeding . . . all in all, the
ranch and feed lot company is a $4
million investment — another barometer
of growing industry in San Antonio.
THE AMMIRILLO DAILY NEWS feb 10th 1949
George Luckey is almost a double for the
President. During the campaign, Mr. Truman
got s. big kick out of having George appear
on the back platform of the train with him.
Spectators would shout, "Which one is
Harry?", and the Prez would laugh and slap
his sides.
George wears the same neat, double-breasted
blue suit, American Legion and 40 and 8
lapel pin, and Masonic ring. They are of
identical height, have similar features, and
get the same enjoyment out of life. Luckey
talks good-humoredly in a soft voice.
Jimmy Roosevelt had been hanging around the banks of California's muddy political swimming hole all spring, testing the water with his toe, bouncing tentatively on the springboard, and obviously preparing to jump in any minute. Early last month, on the anniversary of his father's death, he got a big push—30 Democratic California businessmen gave him a private dinner at Los Angeles' swank Chasen's Restaurant and pledged $50,000 to back him in politics.
He headed for the water on the run, soon had hired three pressagents and a five-room headquarters in Los Angeles' Spring Arcade Building. Last week in an off-the-record speech at the Greater Los Angeles Press Club (which he happily corroborated for the record, afterward), he announced that he was "seriously considering running for governor of California."
Luckey Strike. The announcement, which many a Californian took to mean that he was wild to be governor and hoped to use the office as a springboard for the presidency, was just what was needed to get California politics tuned to its standard note of discord. It re-opened a party quarrel which had begun when Jimmy tried to scuttle Truman for Eisenhower. It also emphasized the rift between Jimmy and E. George Luckey, who as a faithful Trumanite had replaced Jimmy as leader of the state's Democrats.
Luckey, a wealthy, Texas-born cattleman, had backed the Truman campaign in California almost singlehanded, had spent some $10,000 to run it. Since the campaign, he has been Harry Truman's fair-haired boy in California. Eyeing his Elks tooth, big Stetson and cowboy boots, the President had said: "Glad to see you wearing those [pointed] boots, George. They'll be good for kicking some of those fellows in the—."
Like Father. Jimmy's decision to seek the governorship presented Luckey with the first, big baffling problem which had come his way since he began basking in the reflected warmth from the White House. Last week Luckey hinted strongly that Truman was distressed by the idea of Jimmy Roosevelt running for the office. George Luckey was undoubtedly distressed, too: he had been acting as though he thought George Luckey represented the type of Truman Democrat the state needed. It seemed certain that fur would fly before Luckey gave in.
Roosevelt might be able to beat Luckey; he would have a harder time beating Governor Earl Warren, who, though a Republican,"in 1946 ran far out in front on both Republican and Democratic tickets, under California's cross-filing system. Some of Warren's friends said he was still uncertain whether to run for a third term as governor. If he did, Jimmy Roosevelt was obviously banking on an asset which none of Warren's previous opponents had ever boasted—a magic name. Lately Jimmy had been making Sunday-night radio talks, right after Walter Winchell, and had already gotten floods of letters from admirers who wrote things like: "You sound just like your father, God bless you."
TIME monday may 9th 1949
The crowd on Hollywood's Vine Street shouted, cheered and clapped at the sight of Jimmy Roosevelt emerging from Tom Breneman's restaurant with a wide Rooseveltian grin on his face. Inside, Jimmy had just made a broadcast announcing that he would run for governor of California. His studio audience surged out behind him, still munching their free ice cream cones, and gathered around to gawk at the show. On the sidewalk a three-piece band struck up Happy Days Are Here Again, a tumbling team cavorted and square dancers twirled in the rosy glow of neon signs. In the midst of it all stood Jimmy, bald, tall and toothpick thin, bending low to pump a hundred hands.
The curbstone coming-out party attracted a lot of people, though F.D.R.'s eldest (41) son might well have preferred a fine public dinner, full of resounding endorsements from Democratic bigwigs. Unfortunately, most old-line California Democrats regard Jimmy as something of a Typhoid Mary. Among their kindlier criticisms they accused him of being a carpetbagger—a point which he met in his broadcast with a time-honored political cliche: "I congratulate those of you who, like my sons and daughter, had the foresight to be born here. The rest of us, three out of every five Californians, have had at least the merit of choosing wisely."
Mostly his enemies in the party remembered Jimmy's attempt to dump Harry Truman in favor of Eisenhower at Philadelphia last year. "We can't very well trust him," groused redheaded Tom Scully, Los Angeles Truman stalwart. "This is a lot different from The Bronx where the name Roosevelt means something. The people here will fill a ballpark to see a Roosevelt—or a Clark Gable or a Lana Turner, of a Frankenstein. But they won't vote for them." Most of the Truman professionals preferred California's E. George Luckey, the swashbuckling Imperial Valley cattleman who had been widely advertised as President Truman's favorite California Democrat.
Last week they learned that the signals were changed. Democratic National Chairman Bill Boyle let it be known that he (and therefore Harry Truman) was now for Jimmy Roosevelt. Boyle was no man to underestimate the crowd appeal of the name, the smile, the memory-waking voice. Said one party strategist: "George Luckey is awfully nice, but California is important to us. Jimmy Roosevelt can beat Earl Warren. Therefore Roosevelt is our man. It's just that simple.
SAN ANTONIO LIGHT Jan 24th 1977
Rites Set for Famed Cattleman
Services for E. George Luckey, pioneer
cattle feeder, politician and confidante
of presidents, will be held at 11
a.m. Tuesday at Porter Loring Mortuary.
Luckey, who turned down numerous
offers to serve in President Truman's
cabinet, was a powerful political
figure in both Texas and California.
A native of the Texas Hill Country
community of Harper, Luckey was Ihe
first successful cattle feeder in Texas
to use milo insiead of corn, pioneering
an industry that is now a multi-billion
dollar industry in the Lone Star Stale.
Luckey, 73, died Saturday.
San Antonians were inirodoced to
grain fed beef hy Luckey in 1950 when
he set up his fcedlot on 2,000 acres in
West Bexar County and operated T
Cross Cattle Co.
He had previously pioneered Ihe
feedlot industry in California's Imperial
Valley, having started in the cattle
business during the early 1930s.
Luckey was serving as a state senator
in California in 1948 during the
Trurnan-Dewey campaign for president.
Luckey .organized and financed a
train "whistle stop" lour of Southern
California for Truman, which rallied
the support to put Truman in as president.
After Ihe 1948 campaign, Truman
offered Luckey (he secretary of agriculture's
position and later the ambassadorship
10 Mexico. Luckey lurned
both down since he was already planning
his now feedlot venture into
Bexar County.
Luckey also lurned down efforts lo
run for governor of California and retired
from political office.
He continued to support Ihe Democraiic
party in both California and
Texas, and was called "Senator" by
Iriends and acquaintances, including
President Johnson.
Luckey and his wife, M a r j o r i e
Ruth, resided in the same suite in Ihe
St. Anthony Hotel for the past 28
years, but ajso maintained a house in
California.
When Luckey told cattle feeder
friends he was establishing a feedlot
near San Antonio, he was told that
Texans ate only grass fed beef and
ihere was no adequate supply of corn
in the area.
"Some of the people who laughed
at me were the same ones who said ii
was loo hot in the Imperial Valley 10
feed cattle." Luckey recalled.
Luckey proved correct in his assessments
of sorghum as an excellent
grain for entile and thai San Anlonians
and other Texans would prefer
grain fed beef.
He sold his feedlol in l!)7.'i, bui kept
the feedlol under lease for another
year.
Survivors i n c I u d e his widow: a
daughter, Mrs. Julie Munoz. Los Angeles;
a brother, Fred. San Antonio,
and one grandson.
He was a fellow of the Harry S.
Truman L i b ra ry in Independence,
Mo., and active in numerous local
civic organizations, including the San
Antonio Livestock Exposition and the
American Legion.
Graveside services will be held at 3
p.m. Tuesday at Mt. Zion Cemetery in
Bertram.
Thursday, April 09, 1964 San Antonio, Texas
Profile of » cattleman: Told by a
national magazine a few years back,
the George Luckey
story known to the
nation is the one
about how the California
senator masterminded
the Truman
presidential campaign
there how Luckey
was the No. 1 political
power behind the
scenes in that state
. . . but the George
Luckey story closer
to the_ hearts of San
Antonians is t h e
chronicle of his move to the Alamo
City . . . how Luckey has become a
leader in the cattle business in the
heart of a beef-minded state . . . Sunday
afternoon we were invited to the
Luckey Cattle Co. and ranch, about five
miles from Lackland out Highway 90
West ... our guide for the tour was
the senator himself, who drove us about
the 1,500-acre spread, pointed out such
points of interest as the man-made
lakes he's created and kitchen-clean
feed lots where he often has as many
as 15,500 steers fattening . . . this was
the chapter of the George Luckey
story we wanted to learn — how a onetime
California politician had become
one of the most astute cattlemen in
Texas.
The T-Cross brand: Luckey's company
is sometimes called the T-Cross
Cattle Co., so named after the brand
he uses . . . the senator explained the
T-Cross was an old brand he used in
California, then brought to Texas . . .
we were interested to learn, however,
he no longer brands his cattle but now
uses plastic tags instead.
The home for the steers: Refurbishing
acreage for a compact ranch and
feed lot operation amounts to a lot
more than merely supplying cattle
grazing land ... at the George Luckey
ranch, a 55-employe organization, we
saw his private feed mill (he raises
about one-half of all his feed)
nine 4-million-pound silos . . . two big
It-wheel trucks (for cattle and grain)
four stone bams . . . a machine shop
and equipment shed (one fulltime
mechanic and two helpers) . . . pushbutton
electronic loading and unloadind
devices for grain trucks, including
a hydraulic lift which can raise a big
grain truck and dump out its contents
. . . and on Luckey's drawing board is
a huge dehydrating plant, nearly ready
to be added to the feed lot facilities
. . . yep, there's a lot more to ranching
these days than just grazing a few
steers.
Personnel roster: Luckey's "ranch
hands" fall in numerous categories,
ranging from top craftsmen in animal
husbandry to unskilled laborers . . .
but the job George gets a twinkle in
his eye about is what he describes as
his "pistol-packing night watchman."
Changing mother earth: Luckey has
literally changed the face of the earth
on his ranch west of town to make the
terrain ideal for his cattle business
. . . he altered the course of a creek
to make it flow into his lakes . . . he
dredged out creek bottoms, scraped off
the tops of hills, leveled off the topography
. . . spending about $700 an
acre for al) this work, Luckey reminisces,
"Some folks thought we were
nuts to spend so much time and money,
and for a while I wasn't sure they
weren't right."
Wafer everywhere: Acreage at the
ranch is completely irrigated . . . to
make this possible, Luckey used bulldozers
to move great masses of earth
to an already high point on the ranch,
then from it excavated a reservoir 750
feet long, 350 feet wide and 52 feet
deep . . . from the reservoir water can
flow, as directed, in three directions
. . . the shaded pens in his feed lots
have concrete feed troughs and concrete
roadways for the catle to stand
on while feeding . . . all in all, the
ranch and feed lot company is a $4
million investment — another barometer
of growing industry in San Antonio.
THE AMMIRILLO DAILY NEWS feb 10th 1949
George Luckey is almost a double for the
President. During the campaign, Mr. Truman
got s. big kick out of having George appear
on the back platform of the train with him.
Spectators would shout, "Which one is
Harry?", and the Prez would laugh and slap
his sides.
George wears the same neat, double-breasted
blue suit, American Legion and 40 and 8
lapel pin, and Masonic ring. They are of
identical height, have similar features, and
get the same enjoyment out of life. Luckey
talks good-humoredly in a soft voice.
Jimmy Roosevelt had been hanging around the banks of California's muddy political swimming hole all spring, testing the water with his toe, bouncing tentatively on the springboard, and obviously preparing to jump in any minute. Early last month, on the anniversary of his father's death, he got a big push—30 Democratic California businessmen gave him a private dinner at Los Angeles' swank Chasen's Restaurant and pledged $50,000 to back him in politics.
He headed for the water on the run, soon had hired three pressagents and a five-room headquarters in Los Angeles' Spring Arcade Building. Last week in an off-the-record speech at the Greater Los Angeles Press Club (which he happily corroborated for the record, afterward), he announced that he was "seriously considering running for governor of California."
Luckey Strike. The announcement, which many a Californian took to mean that he was wild to be governor and hoped to use the office as a springboard for the presidency, was just what was needed to get California politics tuned to its standard note of discord. It re-opened a party quarrel which had begun when Jimmy tried to scuttle Truman for Eisenhower. It also emphasized the rift between Jimmy and E. George Luckey, who as a faithful Trumanite had replaced Jimmy as leader of the state's Democrats.
Luckey, a wealthy, Texas-born cattleman, had backed the Truman campaign in California almost singlehanded, had spent some $10,000 to run it. Since the campaign, he has been Harry Truman's fair-haired boy in California. Eyeing his Elks tooth, big Stetson and cowboy boots, the President had said: "Glad to see you wearing those [pointed] boots, George. They'll be good for kicking some of those fellows in the—."
Like Father. Jimmy's decision to seek the governorship presented Luckey with the first, big baffling problem which had come his way since he began basking in the reflected warmth from the White House. Last week Luckey hinted strongly that Truman was distressed by the idea of Jimmy Roosevelt running for the office. George Luckey was undoubtedly distressed, too: he had been acting as though he thought George Luckey represented the type of Truman Democrat the state needed. It seemed certain that fur would fly before Luckey gave in.
Roosevelt might be able to beat Luckey; he would have a harder time beating Governor Earl Warren, who, though a Republican,"in 1946 ran far out in front on both Republican and Democratic tickets, under California's cross-filing system. Some of Warren's friends said he was still uncertain whether to run for a third term as governor. If he did, Jimmy Roosevelt was obviously banking on an asset which none of Warren's previous opponents had ever boasted—a magic name. Lately Jimmy had been making Sunday-night radio talks, right after Walter Winchell, and had already gotten floods of letters from admirers who wrote things like: "You sound just like your father, God bless you."
TIME monday may 9th 1949
The crowd on Hollywood's Vine Street shouted, cheered and clapped at the sight of Jimmy Roosevelt emerging from Tom Breneman's restaurant with a wide Rooseveltian grin on his face. Inside, Jimmy had just made a broadcast announcing that he would run for governor of California. His studio audience surged out behind him, still munching their free ice cream cones, and gathered around to gawk at the show. On the sidewalk a three-piece band struck up Happy Days Are Here Again, a tumbling team cavorted and square dancers twirled in the rosy glow of neon signs. In the midst of it all stood Jimmy, bald, tall and toothpick thin, bending low to pump a hundred hands.
The curbstone coming-out party attracted a lot of people, though F.D.R.'s eldest (41) son might well have preferred a fine public dinner, full of resounding endorsements from Democratic bigwigs. Unfortunately, most old-line California Democrats regard Jimmy as something of a Typhoid Mary. Among their kindlier criticisms they accused him of being a carpetbagger—a point which he met in his broadcast with a time-honored political cliche: "I congratulate those of you who, like my sons and daughter, had the foresight to be born here. The rest of us, three out of every five Californians, have had at least the merit of choosing wisely."
Mostly his enemies in the party remembered Jimmy's attempt to dump Harry Truman in favor of Eisenhower at Philadelphia last year. "We can't very well trust him," groused redheaded Tom Scully, Los Angeles Truman stalwart. "This is a lot different from The Bronx where the name Roosevelt means something. The people here will fill a ballpark to see a Roosevelt—or a Clark Gable or a Lana Turner, of a Frankenstein. But they won't vote for them." Most of the Truman professionals preferred California's E. George Luckey, the swashbuckling Imperial Valley cattleman who had been widely advertised as President Truman's favorite California Democrat.
Last week they learned that the signals were changed. Democratic National Chairman Bill Boyle let it be known that he (and therefore Harry Truman) was now for Jimmy Roosevelt. Boyle was no man to underestimate the crowd appeal of the name, the smile, the memory-waking voice. Said one party strategist: "George Luckey is awfully nice, but California is important to us. Jimmy Roosevelt can beat Earl Warren. Therefore Roosevelt is our man. It's just that simple.
Gary
