Mary Ann Goodnight - Canyon, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 34° 58.993 W 101° 54.828
14S E 234017 N 3875061
Located to the right of the entrance to Cornette Library on the West Texas A&M Campus.
Waymark Code: WM135KN
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 09/21/2020
Views: 2
The life size sculpture shows Molly Goodnight in a floor length dress. Her hair is long and tied in a ribbon and hanging down over her left shoulder. Two buffalo calves stand at her feet. She is bottle feeding one of the calves with her left had laid protectively on its back. She appears to be staring off into the distance.
Veryl Goodnight Website
"Charles Goodnight is best known as a cattleman, but what may be his most important legacy came to light in the late 1990s. This very legacy was initiated by the compassion and vision of his wife, National Cowgirl Hall of Fame Honoree, Mary Ann Goodnight. From 1878 until their passing, the Goodnights devoted their lives to bringing bison back from the brink of extinction.
The Goodnights settled in Palo Duro Canyon in 1876, during the height of the great buffalo slaughter. Mary Ann revolted against the senseless slaughter, and finally persuaded her husband to protect the small number of buffalo that had taken refuge in a corner of the Palo Duro Canyon. Goodnight’s cowboys roped two calves and brought them to Mary Ann to care for. These two calves were the beginning of the Goodnight herd.
Progeny from the herd helped to rebuild the bison population across the United States, including the herd in Yellowstone National Park. After Charles Goodnight’s death in 1929, the bison again reverted to the wild in the Palo Duro Canyon. The herd was rounded up during the winter of 1997/98 and DNA tested before being placed in their new home at Cap Rock State Park. To everyone’s amazement, it was discovered that Goodnight’s Bison herd was DNA unique from the bison in the North. The Goodnights had inadvertently saved an entire subspecies from sure extinction."