I am looking for relatives of William Byron Harlan from Oklahoma in the late 180

Question:

I am looking for relatives of William Byron Harlan from Oklahoma in the late 1800.?

Will Harlan was a chuck wagon cowboy in the west Texas area and eventually bought farm land around Muleshoe, Texas.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: hey, Sharon..
Muleshoe is the seat of Bailey co, Tex...this is the genweb page=
http://www.rootsweb.com/~txbailey/...
You may be interested in the section about the old ranches. I read that in 1900, there were all of four persons (not a typo) shown living in the entire county. There are cemetery listings on this page.. done by the local Sherriff. Cowboys, of course, tended to be loners. I have kin who worked for the Matador ranch in West Texas, but surprisingly found some employee lists, and memoirs that mentioned him. If nothing else, you probably can find a land deed for him (not necessarily online).
This gives you some background, but you did not clarify if this is where he died, a possible birth year (or I'd check the 1880 census). The areas in West Texas started settling around the 1870's -1880's, and you can often find their roots in the counties to the north and west of Dallas. I didn't pick up his tracks in rootsweb or the Harlan area of genforum.
Normally, the pattern for migration at that time was more from North Texas counties into Oklahoma/ Indian territory.
If you have some specific dates, names of kids, wife, etc, you can reach me by email through my profile. Will see what I can dig up for you.