By Marie Hughes, director of the Chambers County Museum at Wallisville
George Buchanan “Buck” Hamilton III grew up living every young boy’s dream. When others were watching Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy, dreaming about riding the range and breaking horses, Buck was living it — he was the real deal.
Ranching was in his blood, a heritage passed down from his great-great-great grandfather, James Taylor White I, the Cattle King of Texas, and continued by each subsequent generation. His childhood, steeped in tradition, built on responsibility and bathed in freedom, was a blend of legacy and land that has shaped him for more than 80 years.
Riding the range of memory
“I was probably 3 years old when I first fell in love with horses, as that’s how old I was when I began riding,” said George Buchanan “Buck” Hamilton III, son of George Buchanan “Podgie” Hamilton Jr. and Mabel Mestayer of Stowell.
“My first horse was Bitterweed, who was a gray colored ‘grulla’ horse, part Shetland because he wasn’t very big. He was real gentle and one of the best small horses we ever had.”
He said those early days were filled with imagination as much as real-life ranch work.
“I also had a stick horse I would ride everywhere, and my brother Bo and I wore the end of the sticks off ‘til they wouldn’t touch the ground. When Taylor [White] would come over, we would ride all day on our stick horses. Taylor liked to go behind the pens to stir up dust.”
“Most of the time we would be bare-footed and in our underwear,” Buck said with a laugh.
That carefree childhood sometimes came with hard lessons.
“The house was just across the road from the pens and one time an old mare got in the yard with her colt and I was going to try and run her out. I was probably four or five years old. I ran up behind the colt and he jumped up and kicked me in the head,” he said.
“He cut my head open, and I just remember mom loaded me in the car and she and dad took me to the hospital in Beaumont,” Buck recalled calmly.
Like many boys raised on the ranch, their games mirrored the life around them.
“Taylor, Bo and I would play cowboys with our pistol cap guns,” he said. “We would use a paper bag for our strong box and stuff it full of magnolia leaves, which was our money. We would hide the money somewhere and go chase the bad guys around and come back and get it.”
“We wouldn’t let dad know what we were doing, ‘cause he would get mad,” Buck added.
They even created their own rodeo inside the barn.
“We would play rodeo in the horse barn. We’d use binder twine to fence off our arena and get inside the stall. We’d jump out and kick up dust and fall down. Taylor was always on Strychnine out of chute 99. That was a lot of fun,” Buck said, laughing.
“The horses would come in to get a drink of water and get tangled up in the binder twine and daddy and Pete would get mad.”
Pete Boudreaux, a longtime ranch hand, played a big role in Buck’s upbringing.
“Pete was the guy who worked for us for years,” Buck said. “He taught me how to break a horse and when I was about six, he taught me about the birds and the bees,” he added with a smile.
The barns & pastures were his classroom
As he grew older, Buck’s world expanded beyond play into real responsibility.
“Taylor and I would go to the White Ranch and spend the night with Cap Thibodeaux, who lived there,” he said. “We would go duck hunting sometimes; we’d buy about 100 yards of baling twine and tie our shotguns on our bicycles. We’d find a water hole and sit and wait for ducks.”
Even routine rides could turn into memorable moments.
“One day we were riding down the road and came upon a white cow along side of the road,” Buck said. “She acted upset and started at us, we quickly turned around and Taylor was gone.”
“He hit a big rut in the road and fell, so I scared the cow and she went to her baby calf lying in the grass,” he added, explaining the situation.
Work on the ranch often came with small incentives.
“Dad would pay us to kill rats and opossums, 10 cents per rat and 25 cents for opossums,” Buck said.
But even that work had its share of mishaps.
“One day we were under the cattle barn killing rats by throwing firecrackers in the holes to run the rats out,” he said. “Taylor was chasing one and I threw a firecracker. It landed in his rubber boot.”
“It exploded and blew his boot up like a balloon,” Buck said, laughing. “He kicked off the boot and jumped around for a while and finally got all right.”
Pete & Re-Pete
Among all the influences in his life, Pete Boudreaux stood out the most.
“Pete was my hero; I followed him everywhere,” Buck said.
“They called me Re-Pete, because we would feed, fix fence, put up hay and roll our own smokes,” he added. “He could roll a smoke on his horse at a lope.”
One experience in particular left a lasting impression.
“One day, Pete and I went to ride the pastures at Seabreeze,” Buck said. “I was riding a young colt and following Pete on a canal bank when my horse tripped and fell in the canal with his feet up on the canal bank.”
“We were in the water up to our necks, he couldn’t get up and I was pinned under him,” he said.
Pete stayed calm.
“He came slowly and grabbed the reins and spun the horse around in the mud and pulled the horse off me,” Buck said.
“I don’t think I would have made it without Pete,” he added.
Lessons learned in the dirt & the dust
“My best friend was Bob Kahla,” Buck said. “Bob’s daddy, Bill Kahla, was a rodeo producer and he had bulls and horses over there.”
That exposure led him into rodeo.
“That’s how I got into riding saddle broncs and bulls in the rodeo,” he said.
Working cattle brought its own challenges.
“When we were working cattle down in the marsh near High Island … my young horse started bucking,” Buck said.
“I guess it scared the horse and he stopped bucking and I got back on,” he added.
Another vivid memory involved swimming cattle across Elm Bayou.
“We had some cattle on both sides of that bayou and we used to swim them across it,” Buck said. “The cowboys would swim with them.”
“He wouldn’t let us swim it for a long time, but he finally started letting us swim across with the rest of the cowboys,” he said. “I really enjoyed that.”
Protecting the assets
Family history was always part of Buck’s story.
“My dad, Podgie Hamilton and Jamie White told me that during 1835-1836 … the Whites and cowboys gathered 3,600 head of cattle, 240 horses and eighty slaves and moved them to Louisiana,” Buck said.
He also recalled stories passed down about early inhabitants of the area.
“Dad explained to me where they lived and said he went over there one time and picked up some pottery,” Buck said.
“He said you could smell them before you could see them,” he added with a laugh.
Forging his own legacy
After completing his tour of duty in Vietnam, Buck returned to Texas, packed up his belongings and set out to forge his own legacy in South Texas. He purchased ranches in Bruni, Tilden, Marathon and Balmorhea, where he raised his children. His sons, Cade and Lane, continue to help him with the ranch to this day.
Ranching in South Texas presented new challenges, including drought and a shortage of cowboys. To adapt, Buck began using a helicopter to drive cattle — a method that could do the work of several men. Buck and his sons all became accomplished helicopter pilots.
Later in life, he also served in law enforcement as a deputy, flying helicopters for Jim Hogg County and McMullen County. His duties included locating illegal immigrants, driving cattle and counting deer. During one severe storm, he even rescued a family stranded on the roof of their home.
“Ranching is all I know to do and it has worked out pretty good for me,” Buck said.