The Lyon family was truly a red-blooded all-American family, and well known as a strong honest, very wealthy family, in Texas and other parts of the world. John was the patriarch of the Lyon family. John started his empire in the late 1880s. Born to a well-off family in New Mexico, his father was a cattleman who owned a large cattle ranch, south of Santa-Fe some twenty- odd miles. Due to a tragic accident when John was about sixteen, he lost both parents in a flash flood.