This unadorned, two-story frame house was built by legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight, who lived here for forty years until his death in 1929. The house is all that remains of the first of the grand Panhandle ranches, the 1.3 million-acre JA Ranch, established by Goodnight in 1876. Wood for the house was brought from Louisiana and doors from Colorado. The house was restored in 2007, and the adjacent J. Evetts Haley Visitor and Education Center (2013) was partially funded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) as part of its transportation enhancement program.
With partner Oliver Loving, Goodnight plotted the Goodnight-Loving Trail in 1866. The trail headed west across the South Texas Plains and into New Mexico, following the Pecos River north into Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, thereby avoiding the Texas South Plains and Panhandle areas still being contested by Indians. They sold cattle to the U.S. Army in New Mexico and to ranchers on new ranchlands in the north. Goodnight used nearby Palo Duro Canyon to shelter his cattle in winter, as had the Plains Indians. Mary Ann Goodnight saved a small herd of bison, the direct descendants of which now belong to the State of Texas and graze at the ranch.