John Thomas Lytle, born on October 8, 1844, in McSherrystown, Pennsylvania, was a prominent Texas trail driver and rancher. In 1860, he moved to San Antonio, Texas, with his family, where he initially worked in the Bexar County clerk’s office. After resigning due to poor health, he moved to a ranch in Atascosa County, which helped restore his well-being. Lytle served in the Thirty-second Texas Cavalry during the Civil War, reaching the rank of sergeant. After the war, he established his own ranch near Castroville in 1867.
In 1871, Lytle formed a cattle-trailing partnership with his cousin Thomas M. McDaniel, based in what is now Lytle, Texas. Over the next few years, they successfully trailed large cattle herds to Kansas railheads. Their business expanded in 1874 when Charles A. Schreiner and John W. Light joined the firm, which eventually handled more than half a million cattle, becoming one of Texas’s top cattle-trailing companies. Lytle later sold his interest in the firm and became general manager of the American Cattle Syndicate’s Texas holdings in 1887.
Lytle was instrumental in founding the Union Stock Yards in San Antonio and the Southwestern Livestock Commission Company in Fort Worth. He also co-purchased the large Piedra Blanca Ranch in Coahuila, Mexico. In 1901, Lytle was elected vice president of the Texas Cattle Raisers’ Association, later becoming its secretary. He married Elizabeth Noonan in 1869, and they had two children. Lytle died of influenza on January 10, 1907, in San Antonio.
