The only daughter of one of Texas’ wealthiest cattle kings married a blueblood from Philadelphia on June 17, 1902 in the family mansion at Decatur.
Starting with a small herd of Longhorns in the 1850s, Dan and son Tom Waggoner turned parts of six North Texas counties into a 750 square-mile cattle empire. At the end of the nineteenth century, the colossal Three D Ranch covered more than a million acres.
Electra Waggoner was born in 1882 on the family property east of Decatur and named after her maternal grandfather Electius. She and younger brothers Paul and Guy were the three surviving children of Tom and his wife Ella.
The girl grew up spoiled rotten in El Castile, the fortress-like mansion her doting dad and equally adoring paternal grandfather built in the Wise County seat so the clan could live in town. Gigantic carved doors, two-foot thick walls, ceilings 18 feet high and other impressive architectural touches gave the dwelling the look of a medieval castle.
Ranch hands called Electra the “Princess of the Panhandle,” but her strong-willed mother had other plans for the tomboy. She talked her husband into sending the rough-around-the-edges teen to an exclusive finishing school in Nashville in 1897.
Electra came home three years later a refined young lady, but within a matter of months the Waggoners sent her on a trip around the world to cool a hot romance with a local beau. She returned in November 1901 with a butterfly tattoo and a new fiancé, Albert B. Wharton, a Philadelphia socialite she had met in the mountains of Nepal. This choice evidently met with her parents’ approval because the two were wed the following June.
While Electra was finding true love in the Himalayas, the residents of Beaver tried to change the name of their Wichita County hamlet to “Waggoner.” Tom said nothing doing but did consent to “Electra” as a birthday present for his pride-and-joy.
To keep his little girl close to home, Tom Waggoner built Thistle Hill, a cozy 18-room mansion in Fort Worth, for the newlyweds. He soon had a place of his own on the same block, and brother Guy took up residence right next door.
To say that Electra lived high on the hog is an understatement. She was the first customer to run up a $20,000 tab in a single day at Neiman Marcus in Dallas. Fresh flowers were delivered to her home daily, as were samples of the latest fashions from Paris and New York. She insisted on being the first to try on any garment and never wore anything twice.
Friends claimed that despite her self-indulgence Electra had a kind and generous side. For instance, when told a favorite salesgirl was out sick, Electra got her address “and had her chauffeur drive her there. The girl lived alone and had not eaten properly for days. Electra put on an apron, cleaned the room and prepared a good meal for her.”
That was nice, but money would have done the poor woman a lot more good. Instead of sharing a tiny fraction of her wealth, Electra bought her a bouquet of flowers.
Dec. 25, 1909 was a Christmas to remember in the Waggoner household. Tom gave each of his three grown children a 100,000-acre ranch – Electra traded Paul for the Zacaweista – fully stocked with livestock and worth $6,000,000.
Electra built a new home on her present south of Vernon and sold Thistle Hill in 1911, the same year black gold was discovered at – where else? – Electra. Oil wells were soon pumping millions into the Waggoner fortune.
Eight years later, Electra and Albert bought Shadow Lawn, a seven-acre estate in Dallas. The purchase price was $200,000, and the lady of the house spent $90,000 more remodeling the showplace to suit her expensive tastes.
Electra furnished Shadow Lawn with a half million dollars in European art. She paid $42,000 for a Persian rug, $18,000 for an inlaid Venetian cabinet and $37,000 for an imported marble chest. The drapery bill alone exceeded $55,000.
Electra’s 18-year union with Albert Wharton ended in January 1921. The hard-drinking divorcee turned Shadow Lawn into party central and entertained celebrity guests with lavish and sometimes rowdy soirees.
The way Guy, who tied the knot eight times, and Electra were going through marriages had Tom Waggoner worried. So in 1925 he took back the ranches, consolidated the land under the Waggoner Estate and compensated the kids with trust funds.
As if to make her disapproving father’s point, Electra left her second husband in January 1925 after less than three years of wedded bliss. The ink was hardly dry on the divorce papers, when she married hubby number three on a yacht off the Florida coast.
All the years of burning the candle at both ends had taken a terrible toll on Electra’s health. When Guy learned in October 1925 that doctors did not give her long to live, he chartered a train in St. Louis and raced the thousand miles to New York to be at her bedside.
Electra Waggoner Wharton Bailey Gilmore succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 43. The party was over, and it was time to pay the bill.
Order Bartee’s books “Murder Most Texan” and “Texas Depression-Era Desperadoes” from the “General Store” at barteehaile.com or by mailing a check for $26.65 for each copy to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.