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The History of Diamond C Ranch

Family History

John B. Collier, Jr. (Papo) was a self-made and successful entrepreneur in Ft. Worth, Texas.  He was known across Texas and the U.S. for his production of poultry, eggs, butter, and cheese.  He also formed and operated Diamond C Oils and then in 1939 purchased and expanded the Diamond C Ranch in Stephenville, Texas.  He and his wife Ruth (Mamo) provided the foundation for building the Diamond C Ranch Legacy, which is proudly carried on to this day by the John B Collier IV family.

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Family History

The Beginning of Diamond C

Having purchased the original Diamond C Ranch property in 1939, Papo made the trip from his Ft. Worth business offices to the ranch almost every weekend for the next 50 years.  Over the years the Diamond C Ranch has had a dairy, a hog operation, as well as the main, and current, staple of the Ranch, its cattle herd.  

Through Papo’s close relationship with Armour & Co (the largest meat processors in US at that time headquartered in Chicago), Collier Diamond C Ranch took a major leap to becoming a premier beef producer.  Since that time the cattle operation has gone through many development phases and has raised many cattle breeds.  It’s a continuing effort to breed the best cattle possible and has led to the development of today’s Unique Red Angus and Red SimAngus herds.

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The Beginning of Diamond C

Beef Cattle Improvement (BCI)

The Diamond C Ranch was chosen by Armour & Co.  as one of their three progeny testing herds in the U.S.A. Armor purchased a number of the best beef bulls in America, collected semen from them in Morris, Ill., then shipped the collected semen to the three chosen progeny testing ranches. Each of the three ranches used the semen on their test herds for breeding purposes.

 

John B IV had the opportunity of a lifetime when he turned 14 yrs. to travel with Harold White (head of BCI Research at Armour) for three summers. They traveled across the U.S. looking at and evaluating all the top purebred bulls among all the breeds. By the time he was 17 yrs. he had visited most of the best purebred herds in 43 states and had the opportunity to listen to Harold White evaluate those cow herds. He looks back on this experience as the best education he could have had in preparation for his future in the seed stock cattle industry.