Clark Pioneer Stories Copyrighted 2005 for Clark county South Dakota and Gordon Meyer
A Short Story of Caton Hoblit
A Clark County Pioneer
Caton Hoblit Clark County South Dakota
Copyrighted 2005 for Clark county South Dakota and Gordon Meyer
This is another short story of one of Clark counties colorful pioneers. The information for this story was acquired though local residents, and from the Clark County Centennial book. Some of the information in the story was written by Evelyn Meents. This story was written by Gordon Meyer.
Caton Hoblit was one of the most colorful and unusual residents of Clark County. Caton was probably a Lawyer because he knew the Law. The story is that when Caton came to South Dakota he settled in Spink County, this turned out to be almost a disaster, the banks were in the process of foreclosing on him, but Caton convinced them to go along with him and he would get them paid off. Caton then moved to Clark County where he done very well and he did get the Banks satisfied. . Caton was an enormous man he weighed around 500 pounds. He had his buggies reinforced to carry his enormous weight. He had several teams of horses, that he used in his every day activities. He would drive to Clark almost every day and he drove his horses very hard. When Mr.Hoblit arrived in Clark he would drive into the livery stable to have his horses watered and fed, then he would order a meal for himself and have it brought to him at the livery stable, from the hotel he ate his meal in the buggy. This is one many stories told about Caton's enormous size, was that one day when he arrived in Clark, there was a Circus in town, of course Caton couldn't get down to get into the circus so they opened the tent up and pushed his buggy into the tent. It was said that Caton's size attracted more attention than the circus performers. There is another story told by Evelyn Meents, this took place during the threshing season. Evelyn's father helped thresh on the Hoblit ranch. Mrs. Hoblit and Mrs Jacobs were doing the cooking, her father said they put food on a large platter with a piece of meat the size of a roast and took it to Mr. Hoblit, Evelyn's father thought it was for the threshing crew. Caton didn't go through the doors to get into his house, He had a special entry made to his room, and he would drive his buggy up to this special entry, and this is how he got into his house.
The Hoblit ranch was as well known in the Clark area as was Caton himself. Mr. Hoblit, his wife, his daughter, and her husband Frank Jacobs owned the Hoblit/Jacobs Ranch. In the days around the turn of the century they raised sheep and cattle which grazed thousands of acres of land. When the settlers started moving into the area Mr. Hoblit would come drive out to meet them and explain to them in no uncertain terms that they weren't welcome. When the farmers would get the land tilled and the crops planted, it would seem that some of Hoblits cattle would seem to get loose, and graze on there crops. Of course there were always prairie fires in those days, but during this this period, there were an unusual amount of prairie fires and they seem to head right for the settlers buildings. The grass would come back as soon as it rained, the the farmers crops were ruined.
With the influx of settlers, into Clark county the way the ranchers had been operating, had to change, or leave, and Caton left and went to Texas or Oklahoma. Caton bought land in Texas, and this is where he died. The Hoblit family kept the land in Fordham Township. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs and there boys would come back in the spring and farm the land and in the fall return to Texas. It is thought that Mrs. Hoblit went to Wyoming and taught school she was around 80 years old at this time. It is said that she was teaching at rural schools, and lived in a teacherage far from town.
The Caton Hoblits had two girls one of them died when she was quite young, I am told she was burned, and died. the Other girl was Grace, and she Married Frank Jacobs. The girl that died young was buried on the Hoblit ranch, just across the corner from the school house was a fenced area about the size of a small room around a big rock, and this was suppose to be the burial place of this girl. The local people believe that body has been moved to a different, location, probably to Texas.
An Addendum To the Caton Hoblit Story
Caton Hoblit Age 32
It is very gratifying when when you get the help I have received on this true story. This addition also proves that a story is never really finished. It also proves to me that the family after Caton were just a productive as he was.
This was sent to me by Gary Cutrer
San Angelo, Texas
325-650-5091
I am a great great grandson of Hoblit and recently wrote a family history for the Permian Basin Historical Society
about a family ranch in
Upton County, Texas.
Would it be possible to get a larger scan of the photo in your
article? Do you know of any other photos of the family at the time?
I'd always heard the story that Caton Hoblit had to be winched up in
the air and lowered
back down onto his wagon seat and this story confirms the fact that
he was a huge, obese
man.
Frank Jacobs married Caton's sole living daughter Grace and they had
seven kids. The eldest, Caton Hoblit Jacobs, was my grandfather. After most of the
kids had arrived the entire clan decided to move to Texas. They
purchased the Old Flowers Ranch (11 sections) south of Christoval,
Texas, in Tom Green County. That's 20 miles south of San Angelo. The
old man died a couple years after the family had settled in Texas and
had made a couple trips by motorcar back and forth from Dakota.
Caton Hoblit is buried in the cemetery at Christoval. Frank and
Grace split the blanket approx 1930 and Grace moved to San Diego,
Calif., where she had a large home on a point overlooking the
Pacific. She was related somehow to Gary Cooper and would visit him
time to time in Los Angeles. Frank and one of his sons built houses
during the oil boom at McCamey, Texas. He died in Arizona where he
operated a trading post near an Indian reservation.
Caton Jacobs continued to run the Christoval ranch until his death in
1964. He purchased another ranch at Castle Gap in Upton county (9
sections - the Cody Bell ranch) in 1936. He managed some ag
businesses and worked for himself as real estate agent. Also ranched
and formed Cope-Jacobs Livestock and later Jacobs Livestock Company.
Raised mostly sheep and Angora goats, Quarter horses, some herefords.
Caton and wife Thelma Farrington had nine children.
Thanks,
Gary Cutrer
San Angelo, Texas
325-650-5091
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