The XIT Ranch became a great Texas ranch of international fame through an 1882 contract for construction of the granite capitol building in Austin, when out-of-state investors headed by wealthy Chicago merchants John V. Farwell and Senator C.B. Farwell built the largest state capitol in North America and received 3,000,000 acres of land in payment. The grant stretched 200 miles in length, later enclosed by a 6,000-mile barbed wire fence, from near the site of present Lubbock to the Oklahoma line 40 miles north of here, including land in Bailey, Castro, Cochran, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Hartley, Hockley, Lamb, Oldham, and Parmer counties. In 1885 Trail Boss Abner Blocker delivered the first herd to Buffalo Springs and scratched the "XIT" in corral dust with his boot heel to create the famous brand. Though the ranch lands were later parceled and sold, the XIT endured in Texas memory, especially here, 32 miles south of its Buffalo Springs headquarters, where Dalhart holds an annual XIT reunion with a rodeo and parade featuring a horse with an empty saddle in honor of past range riders, and where a permanent tribute to XIT cowboys, the "empty saddle" monument designed by Western artist Bobby Dycke, was dedicated in 1940.