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Gray County, Texas

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Contents

History/Timeline

  • Gray County was formed 1876 from Bexar District; organized in 1902.
Prehistoric Plains Apache inhabitants gave way to the Apaches, then were displaced by the Comanches and Kiowas who dominated the Panhandle area until Red River Wars of 1874 when the Native Americans were moved to Indian Territory.[1]
1876 -Gray County was named for Peter W. Gray, a lawyer and politician of the Republic of Texas and Civil War era..[2][1]
1877 - Settlement began with ranchers.[1]
1878 Settlement began with ranchers. Well-known local rancher, Perry LeFors, established a small ranch on Cantonment Creek. Other small ranching operations developed in the eastern part of the county.
1882 the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company purchased a huge tract of land in the western part of Gray County. [2][1]
1886 The company failed , but was reorganized as the White Deer Lands (formally the White Deer Lands Trust , which operated the huge Diamond F Ranch. [1]
.
1886-1900 Gray County remained the domain of cattle ranchers. [1]
1887-1888 Railroads entered Gray County from two different points. A Santa Fe subsidiary, [1]the Southern Kansas Railway Company, building from Kansas to Amarillo. This line allowed settlers in Gray County to ship cattle more easily and economically and allowed for greater ease of travel, but no settlers.[1]
1900 stable stock-farming population felt a growing need for self-government.[1]
1901-02 new settlements of McLean and Alanreed were founded on the tracks as they moved westwars.[1]
1902 - White Deer Lands began to sell its huge holdings , and a land rush to the area of Carson and Gray counties began. [1]
1902 the county was organized with Lefors as the county seat (a tiny ranching town). [1]
1903-24 Timothy Dwight Hobart was the White Deer land agent from 1903 to 1924, and was elected mayor of Pampa in 1927
1928, when Pampa's oil-induced growth led to its becoming the county seat.[1]
1905 farmers began to arrive in the region, the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Texas Railroad, an affiliate of the Chicago and Rock Island, built a line westward from Oklahoma to Amarillo. This line crossed far S Gray County. [1]
1910 - county population grew to 3,405 and (4,663 by 1920). The newly arriving farmers settled in the western and northern parts of the county, planting wheat, corn, and grain sorghums on fertile, newly broken lands.[1]
1920's -Major petroleum discoveries greatly altered the county. Oil and gas exploration began in the county during the early 1920s. Population of the county was (4,663 in 1920) to (22,090 by 1930), [1]
1926 - A major discovery well five miles south of Pampa, the H. F. Wilcox Oil and Gas Company's Worley-Reynolds well, drilled in 1926, led to more developments around Lefors.
1925- 1928 increasing amounts of oil came out of the county's three oilfields (the Lefors, Bowers, and south Pampa fields). [1]County was oil producer.
1928 Pampa, the chief beneficiary of the oil industry, emerged as a major oil town became county seat in 1928.[1]
1929 Clinton-Oklahoma-Western Railroad Company of Texas served Gray County to Hemphill County at the Oklahoma border. Another line then connected eastward to Clinton, Oklahoma. There was an eleven-mile extension of the COW-T from Heaton to the former oil camp of Coltexo in Gray County.[1]
1931 - COW-T to the former Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway.[1]
1940 population then leveled off to 23,911 (24,728 in 1950 .[1]
1950's county population of 31,535 in 1960; the population then declined to (26,949 in 1970), (26,386 in 1980), (23,967 in 1990), (22,744 in 2000), and (23,044 in 2014). [1]
1957 Gray County was center of the White Deer Lands Management Company.[1]
2004 - Almost 1,369,000 barrels of petroleum were produced in the county (672,307,787 barrels had been produced in the area since 1925).[1]



1876 JA Ranch located in Gray County, 190,000 Acres primary use Cow-Calf

John George Adair, a Irish aristocrat dandy teemed up with Charles Goodnight who also is well known for co-founding the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Adair provided the money and Charles Goodnight ran the ranch.. AT one point the JA Ranch encompassed 1,300,000 acres. Over time chunks were sold. It could described as "King Ranch of the Panhandle.Despite their differences, their partnership arrangement—Goodnight ran the ranch, Adair put up the money-produced one of Texas’ most beautiful and well-run spreads, the King Ranch of the Panhandle.

By 1887 there were many fights with the State of Texas, Goodnight Lady Cornelia Ritchie Adair to buy him out.. She gave the ranch to son, James W. “Jack” Ritchie. When he died, he passed it on to his son, M.H.W. “Monte” Ritchie, who owns it today. Now 87, the U.K. native lives in Amarillo but still visits the JA every week.[3]


Government Offices

Gray County has had 2 courthouses. The first was in Lefors. NO IMAGE

History began with the buffalo, then a pioneer man named Travis Leach moved here 1880;s. the few others were Lovett, Lefors, and Thut families. Emma Thut* was known as the first woman in area who was unmarried. She worried about being "old maid" at 14, and married Mr LeFors. They lived in a dugout, Emma's father, Henry was the first postmaster. </ref>http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasPanhandleTowns/LeforsTexas/LeforsTx.htm</ref>
The first post office had dirt walls and the "mailboxes" were carved into the walls. Henry felt LeFors to expand, thus carved 14 boxes.. Only 4 were used.. Henry Thut brought the lumber for first Gray County Courthouse.. Soon the county seat became Pampa, so the Thut family moved into the old courthouse. LeFors had a severe blizzard 1938 then 90%. 90% of LeFors was destroyed, losing one life.
Lefors had a severe blizzard in 1938 and 90% of the town was destroyed in 1975. Each disaster claimed one life. By 1932 LeFors was just a stop on the railroad between Childress and Pampa. The railroad let the whole town ride to Childress and back for free. http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasPanhandleTowns/LeforsTexas/LeforsTx.htm
2nd Gray county Courthouse, 1928, Pampa- This 1928 Courthouse is beaux arts with Georgian ornamentation. The building was built after the county seat was moved from Lefors in 1928. Built upon a foundation of Indiana limestone, the steel frame and many windows give a modern look to the traditional beaux arts style. Kaufman designed Pampa's city hall and fire station in a similar style. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997
1928 Gray county courthouse, Pampa.

Geography

Size: 934 square miles of level prairie and rolling river breaks.[1]
Soil - sandy loam and black waxy soils [1]
Grasses, crops, trees - native grasses, abundant wheat, corn, grain sorghum, and hay crops. The timber in the riverbottoms includes cottonwoods, hackberries, elms, and walnuts as well as the ever-present mesquite. [1]
Minerals -The county has huge reservoirs of oil and natural gas. [1]
Type - Gray County is made up of 2 parts: the flat plains in the west and north, and the Red River breaks in the east, center, and southeast. [1]
Creeks Rivers - North Fork of the Red River; in E part of the county McClellan Creek flows NE across the S part of the county toward the North Fork, which flows across the central part. Cantonment Creek flows southward. [1]
Elevation- 2,500 to 3,300 feet above sea level
Rainfall is 20.14 inches
Growing season ---- 195 days a year.
Temperature is 23° F in January, and maximum is 94° in July.

North Central Plains is bounded by the Caprock Escarpment in the Panhandle. The Caprock is higher in elevation than the rest of the North Central Plains. This is known as the Breaks.

Caprock.

The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east. The Handbook of Texas defines the southern border of Swisher County to be the southern boundary of the Texas Panhandle region.According to the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission, the following counties constitute the Texas Panhandle:

Armstrong County, Briscoe County, Carson County, Castro County Childress County, Collingsworth County, Dallam County, Deaf Smith County, Donley County, Gray County, Hall County, Hansford County, Hartley County, Hemphill County, Hutchinson County, Lipscomb County, Moore County, Ochiltree County, Oldham County, Potter County, Randall County, Roberts County, Sherman County, Swisher County. Wheeler County

Adjacent counties

  • Roberts County (north)
  • Wheeler County (east)
  • Donley County (south)
  • Carson County (west)
  • Hemphill County (northeast)
  • Hutchinson County (northwest)
  • Collingsworth County (southeast)
Protected areas
  • McClellan Creek National Grassland

Demographics

Gray County comprises the Pampa, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area.[2][1]

The modern economy of the county depends upon a mix of oil, petrochemicals, farming, and ranching. In 2002 the county had 351 farms and ranches covering 452,820 acres, 63 percent of which were devoted to pasture and 35 percent to pasture. In that year farmers and ranchers in the area earned $94,867,000; livestock sales accounted for $87,340,000 of the total. Cattle, wheat, sorghum, hay, corn, and soybeans were the chief agricultural products.[1]

In 2000, there were 22,744 people giving a population density of 24 people/sq mi. The racial makeup of the county was 82.15% White, 5.85% Black or African American, 0.94% Native American, 0.39% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 8.23% from other races, and 2.42% from two or more races. 13.01% of the population were Hispanic.[2]

The median income for a family was $40,019. Per capita income for the county was $16,702. About 11.20% of families and 13.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.60% of those under age 18 and 9.60% of those age 65 or over.[2]

Highways

I-40 (TX) Interstate 40
U.S. Highway 60
Texas State Highway 70
Texas State Highway 152
Texas State Highway 273

Politics:
Voters of Gray County favored the Democratic candidate in each presidential election from 1904 through 1948. The only exception was 1928, when Republican Herbert Hoover defeated Al Smith. In 1952 - the votes have been Republican, beginning with Dwight Eisenhower. [1]

Cities

Town

Formed From

  • Bexar District

Resources

  • The history of the White Deer Lands Management Company is the theme of the White Deer Land Museum in Pampa, but company archives are at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon.
  • Oil, Gas
  • Wheat
Census
1880 --- 56
1890 --- 203 262.5%
1900 --- 480 136.5%
1910 --- 3,405 609.4%
1920 --- 4,663 36.9%
1930 --- 22,090 373.7%
1940 --- 23,911 8.2%
1950 --- 24,728 3.4%
1960 --- 31,535 27.5%
1970 --- 26,949 −14.5%
1980 --- 26,386 −2.1%
1990 --- 23,967 −9.2%
2000 --- 22,744 −5.1%
2010 --- 22,535 −0.9%
Est. 2015 --- 23,210


Notables

Phil Cates, state representative from 1971 to 1979, born in Pampa in 1947[12]
Tom Mechler, state Republican chairman ; former Gray County Republican chairman
Kae T. Patrick, Texas House of Representatives from San Antonio from 1981 to 1988
Cemeteries



Sources

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.30 1.31 1.32 https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcg08
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_County,_Texas
  3. http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-biggest-ranches/
  • www.co.gray.tx.us/
  • Gray County Bicentennial Observance, 1776–1976




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