06/17/2025
Vol.48-No.25
June 20, 1996
Unlike Ancestors, Mort Mertz Is Rancher First And Foremost
By Colleen Schreiber
SAN ANGELO — Mort Mertz has banking in his blood but not in his heart. Unlike the two generations of Mertz’s before him, he never had the desire to put on a suit and be tied to an office on a daily basis. He’s been in the cattle and sheep business full-time since he graduated from college.
“All of my kinfolk were ranchers and bankers until they got broke,” Mertz says.
“I never cared anything about the banking and I really didn’t know anything about it ... Well, I should know something about it, because ranchmen have to borrow money all their life,” he adds.
Mertz’s grandfather, Mortimer L. Mertz, was a long-time rancher, banker and entrepreneur in West Texas. The town of Mertzon, a ranching community in Irion County, was named after him.
The elder Mertz came to West Texas from his native hometown of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, on vacation in his early teens.
He was only 14 when his father died, and to support himself he took a job as a printer. From the printing office he went into an abstract firm and later into a private banking house.
Mertz says his grandfather had always dreamed of seeing the West, so in 1869 he seized the opportunity, taking six months’ leave from his job. He had planned to travel to El Paso and then back home.
Family tradition has it that Mertz’s stagecoach paused for the night in San Angelo, where he met up with some of the local sheepherders, mostly young men of his own age. They invited him to eat and spend the night with them at their sheep camp.
He apparently stayed for a couple of days, and in the meantime the cook quit, so the young Midwesterner offered to cook for awhile.
“He cashed in his stagecoach ticket to El Paso and never went back to Wisconsin,” Mertz says of his grandfather.
He worked in the Devil’s River country in the Ozona area for three or four years, taking his pay in sheep. Before long he had his own herd. Mertz headquartered on the Beaver’s Lake on the Devil’s River. A landmark of that era, the younger Mertz says, was Mertz’s water hole on the Kincaid ranch.
In 1887 Mertz joined forces with George J. Bird, a rancher in Menard County. Together Mertz and Bird operated a country in Schleicher, Irion and Tom Green counties and trailed 21,400 sheep the first four years they were in partnership.
Mertz was instrumental in getting the Orient Railroad to San Angelo and was named director of the line in 1910. When he died, he was vice president and treasurer of the Orient of Texas. Mertzon, which lies on the railroad’s path, was named in his honor. The little town was first known as Mertz, but the post office later changed it to Mertzon.
In 1892 Bird and Mertz bought a substantial amount of stock in San Angelo National Bank. Bird was made a director and Mertz was elected president, an office which he held for 40 years until his death in 1931.
Mertz’s father, Leonard Mortimer Mertz, was born on March 7, 1896 in San Angelo. He attended grade schools in San Angelo, graduated from the Culver Military Academy, and attended the Wharton School of Business and Finance, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas
He held a regular commission in the U.S. Army during World War I.
During the darkest days of the Great Depression, L.M. Mertz took a job as inspector with the newly established Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
“It was the only source of finance for farmers and ranchers at the time,” his son says. “None of the ranch top people would offer. They had lots of assets, but they didn’t have any weekly cash flow.”
The RFC later became the Farm Credit Administration’s National Credit Association, the Texas branch became Credit Production Association. The RFC office in San Angelo, and the national headquarters was later. That branch became and maintained one of the original names. All the work was handled for the officers in which they were located, Mertz says.
Mertz’s grandmother on his father’s side was a Mayer, another long-time West Texas ranch family.
Abe Mayer Sr.’s father owned a general merchandise store on the banks of the San Saba River. The family later moved their mercantile to Sonora, and Abe Mayer began ranching at Middle Valley operating under the name of T’Half Circle. The town of Mayer, just over the Sutton County line in Schleicher County, was the site of ranch headquarters.
In 1907 Mayer sold his interest in the T’Half Circle to Sol Mayer and moved to San Angelo.
“He was quite a roper,” Mertz says of his grandfather Mayer. “He roped 50-something head of outlaw steers at one point and made enough money off of them to get married.”
In 1909 he and his bride moved to the Howard Well Ranch, on Howard Draw in Crockett County, owned by Val Verde Land and Cattle Company.
In 1915, while operating the Crockett County ranch, in his budget addition known as the Cockett Canyon country, the Middle Concho River in Irion and Tom Green counties from Bird and Mertz.
Mayer became well known for his roping ability. Will Rogers was once a judge at the roper of the time, and he came to the Ozona rodeo every year, where Mayer performed.
Mertz has a fond memory of the summer he and his brother, his mother and sister spent in California.
“I want to go again one day,” he recalls. “Spencer Tracy and several other celebrities were there, and Will Rogers came walking in. His mother was with him, she had the flu and didn’t remove her from the car.”
Mertz says Mort Mertz took a job in Agriculture in Animal Husbandry in the U.S. Army and served for five years.
The partners partnered in the Rice Brothers for three years before Mertz was again drafted into the army. He’d spent time in Africa during World War II in Germany, and during the Korean War he was sent back to Germany, very near where he had originally served.
After mustering out of the service in 1954, Mertz married Madolyn Powell. Rather than return to the New Mexico ranch, he worked briefly for his father on the family ranch at Arden. His brother stayed on in New Mexico for some 20 years.
In 1955 his father-in-law, John Powell, offered him a chance to operate some of his country at Big Lake, so he moved to Big Lake, to the Mertz’s ranch Powell was well known throughout the sheep industry. Powell raised top open-face Rambouillet.
“That’s where I got my start,” Mertz explained.
“He sold me 1252 of those open-face Rambouillets, and that’s the bloodline that I’ve maintained ever since.”
Mertz lambs in March, ships 75 to 80 pound lambs around the middle of September through the first of October.
Lambing later, he says, suits his operation better, not only because fall shipment tends to provide a better market opportunity, but also because he doesn’t worry as much about bad weather during shearing. He usually marks about a 115 percent lamb crop. Mertz also sells some 200 buck lambs a year. He keeps the cream of the crop for his own stud herd. "I'm lucky to get 50 a year that I really like," he remarks. "There's about 20 things you have to look for in sheep that you don't have to look for in cattle." Mertz says if there is one thing that he faults his sheep on is that they used to be longer. "Conformation is very important," he remarks. "You want that stretch in sheep, but you want good wool as well. The wool has to be good on the sides and the belly. You want the same kind of wool clear across their body." Mertz focuses equally on wool and lamb, but lamb income makes him the most money, by far.
The first few years he was in business, Mertz fed his lambs out.
“I never lost any money,” he says, “but I never really made any, either. The ewes have always fed their lambs and they’ve made money every time, so I’ve watched what they’ve done and the last two years I’ve fed mine out and they’ve done fine.”
In addition to his Rambouillet sheep, Mertz has long been a Hereford man.
In recent years he’s incorporated Angus and Salers breeding into his program. His calves are half Hereford, a quarter Angus and a quarter Salers.
“For years, if my Hereford calves weighed 500 pounds I was just tickled to death,” Mertz remarks. “When we crossed the Hereford with the Salers all of a sudden I was weaning 600 pound calves. And then after we took the Saler and put those high-powered Angus bulls on them, we jumped weaning weights up to 700 pounds.
“I think we’ve hit on something for the feedlot, too,” he adds. “These calves gain and perform well in the feedlot, and they grade.”
Mertz has never carried his calves through the feedlot, but three sons have been feeding theirs for several years with Syracuse Feedyard, operated by Koch Beef Co. out of Syracuse, Kansas, and he says they’ve done well.
Mertz used to market his calf crop through an order buyer. Lately he has been going to special feeder sales, and in recent years he’s sold on the satellite. When the market straightens out, Mertz says, he’ll probably try his luck in the feedlot.
His Eldorado country is different, too — so when Mertz first moved to Schleicher County his cattle developed serious problems with lump jaw. Thanks to the help of some veterinarian friends and a nutritionist who formulated a special salt mixture with double the minimum daily iodine requirement, his cattle no longer suffer from this problem.
In 1990 he left Schleicher and moved down to the east clear of mesquite, thanks to an aggressive brush management program which he had been promoting for many years. He recalls that most of the livestock not having enough grass was that way in the early 1990s. That year it started raining in July. We had some rain and it didn’t grow a bit of grass. All it did was sprout these dormant w**d seeds — mesquite, prickly pear and cedar,” Mertz says.
He worries that if future generations are to continue businesses such as ranching, ranch people need breaks, and not necessarily in the taxes.
Mertz says even during a respite, Mertz, like other ranchers in Schleicher County, was facing a serious infestation of cedar. During the 1950s, the rancher has by no means broken even in the brush-busting business, but he is feeding his livestock.
“I had heard about it, this is the toughest year I’ve ever had,” Mertz remarks. “The drought, high overhead, high feed costs, all make it tough.”
Mertz has been feeding hay since October, and his sheep since January.
“We’ll be lucky if we can stay in business another 30 days at this pace,” Mertz said in mid-June. He’s 60 years old, a rancher who did not have the benefit of inherited wealth, but who made his way with hard work and a deep-seated appreciation of the lifestyle.
“My dad and brother never said much to me about it. When I came back from college, Dad did not want me to go. He never wanted to see another dinner ruined because of the problem.”
As for the cattle market, Mertz has lived through several down cycles.
“I bought some registered Red Poll calves in 1952 for $200 in Mexico and sold them for 18 cents,” he recalls.
The recent problem would not have surprised him, he says.
“Dad always told me never to fall in love with my livestock or marry them. I’ve known this bad time was coming, and with the drought … I just didn’t want to sell my cattle.
“The cattle and sheep I have at Arden were my Dad’s,” he continues. “I ate the country off way too short and the only thing he told me not to do, just because they were his.”
Today Mertz operates his wife’s family country at Eldorado and the old Mertz family ranch at Arden. His three sons, Len, Mort and Michael, partner in cow/calf country in Schleicher, Irion and Reagan counties, and his daughter Susan ranches with her husband Dub Slaughter at Sheffield.
Len and Mort, like their grandfather and great-grandfather, are involved in some facet of the livestock and banking business as well. Michael, however, like his father, broke that mold. He’s tried other things, but like his father, ranching was all he ever really wanted to do.
“I learned a lot from Dad and my father-in-law,” the elder Mertz says. “They didn’t tell you a lot, but you learned by watching.”
A rancher can be the best ranchman in the world, Mertz continues, “but unless he’s a good merchandiser he falls short on the other end.”
One philosophy he has passed on to his kids is to raise a product they can stand behind.
“We don’t want to raise something — for lack of a better word — junk,” Mertz says. “We want to raise a good product and we want to fairly represent it. We want to have integrity. That was passed on to me, and I think that I passed that on to my children.”
