The Wellborn 2R ranch is made up of two main tracts – the original Scheer Ranch and the Priddy 2R Ranch and encompasses 8,300 acres located near the town of Henrietta, Clay County Texas. The location just happens to be almost dead center of the distance between the East and West coast of the United States. Like other ranches in Clay county, the Wellborn 2R ranch is the ideal place to raise Black Angus cattle and Coastal Bermuda Hay.
The two tracts of land that make up the ranch each have amazing stories to tell of pioneers that traveled west to realize their dreams. It’s a tale of cowboys and Indians, of a murder and burial on the ranch, of a poor farm including its own jail house to manage the indigent, of a prominent business man and his wife, Robert and Ruby Priddy, whose name the southern portion ranch bares and who left a fortune via The Priddy Foundation to the city of Wichita Falls, Texas. And finally the realization of a dream of its current owners, Chris and Joan Wellborn.
German immigrants, John Sanzenbacher and his nephew, Chris Sanzenbacher and wife Lucy, came to America in pursuit of gold
during the California Gold Rush. When those dreams didn’t pan out, they came to Texas seeking cattle country and purchased what is now a portion of the Wellborn 2R Ranch in the early 1870s in a community then known as Cambridge. They lived in a dugout while their house was being built. In 1875 Chris and Lucy had a baby, a girl they named Mamie. She is recorded as the first white child born in Clay County.
John never had any children so at the time of his death in 1879 he left half of his land and inheritance to Mamie, the only living Sanzenbacher child at the time. Her parents managed her portion of ranch for her until she was old enough to do so. She married C.S. (Charlie) Scheer and they raised seven children on the ranch. After their passing, their middle son, Henry Scheer, took on ownership of the family ranch, with his son, Henry Junior, eventually taking over. Current owners, Chris and Joan Wellborn, purchased this historic family ranch from Henry Scheer, Jr. and his wife, Iris Dean.
