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| Railroad into Childress |
In the southeast corner of the Texas Panhandle
is Childress County. This was the site of our last visit before hitting the
highway home. It, like many of the other counties, has a history of land use by
Native Americans, visitation by European explorers, and early colonization by
ranchers. In fact at one time almost the entire county was occupied by four
large ranches. Cattle from these were driven along the Palo Duro - Dodge
City trail to Dodge City, Kansas.
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| Antique car |
Donley is another small county in the Panhandle
of Texas. As of 2019 there are only about 3,000 residents and that number is
down around 11% from previous years. While this was once cattle country, it’s
now mixed use of ranching and farming. In good years there are enough crops for
folks to make a living; but when there is drought, lots of irrigation is needed
just to break even.
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| Bank building |
I thought that Amarillo was the seat of
Armstrong County, but I was wrong. It’s actually the seat of Potter County and
is near the geographic center of the Texas Panhandle. Its name may come from
the yellow wildflowers that are plentiful in the area since amarillo is yellow
in Spanish. Someday we’ll actually visit that county courthouse and I’ll write
about Potter County – but not today. Here’s a nice picture of a bank we passed;
I think the architecture is Classical Revival but it may be Federal.
Until this trip all I knew about the XIT Ranch
was that at one time it had
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| XIT Ranch Museum |
been the largest spread in Texas. I didn’t know
that two men got all of the land by supplying the stone for and building of the
state capitol, nor did I know that there were so many little towns that
originated as business centers for the ranch. There’s lots more to learn, and
not just about ranching in Texas.
