Dinging about in Donley County

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.










Donley County’s story begins much like that of the other counties in the area: Plains Apaches, followed by Kiowa and Comanche, with visitor

Methodist Church

Pedro Vial followed by Santiago Fernández prior to the arrival of settlers which brought the military into the area to put down the original inhabitants. In 1876 the area was separated from Bexar County, and briefly assigned to Wegefarth County; it was subsequently designated Donley County. The county was named for Stockton P. Donley, a criminal lawyer and elected Texas Supreme Court Judge. Also in 1876 the southwestern part of the county came under control of the JA Ranch with owners Charles Goodnight and John Adair in charge. More settlers arrived, Methodists from New York led by the minister, Lewis Henry Carhart. That settlement, named Clarendon, for Carhart's wife, Clara, was organized in 1878. Two years later it was one of only three towns in the Panhandle, becoming a small regional trade center. Surprisingly there were no cattle, but sheep and horses. It wasn’t until 1882 that Clarendon was named the county seat and about that time that the ranchers came along with their herds of cattle.

Clarendon and the rest of the county underwent slow growth until the

Funeral Home

arrival of the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway in 1887; unfortunately it passed five miles south of town, causing the residents to move the town to a new site next to the tracks. By 1887 the new town had shops, offices, and Clarendon College. Twelve years later, Pleasant Andrew Buntin, known as ‘P.A.’, established the first funeral home in the Texas Panhandle; originally known as Buntin Funeral Home, it has been continuously in operation ever since. The number of ranches continued to increase with a corresponding decrease in farms, although both enterprises were doing fairly well. Although the Great Depression had an impact, poultry, sorghum, orchards, and cereal grains began to dominate the agriculture production; cotton production dropped during these years. What caused the most impact to this area was the increase of mechanization in the 1940s plus the droughts of the 1950s; both of these drove the small farmer out of business.

The development of state and national highways have given Donley County an economic boost and made the area more attractive to folks

Donley County Courthouse

moving in that direction. Clarendon College, which was active from 1887 to 1927, was revitalized a year later as a publicly funded junior college. There are now recreational facilities in the form of the Greenbelt Reservoir, attracting more residents. Although ranching and farming remain viable, natural gas pumping has added to the county’s economy. Constructed in 1890, the Donley County Courthouse was built from brick and stone in the Romanesque Revivalstyle from architectural designs by Bulger and Rapp; it’s the oldest functioning courthouse in the Texas Panhandle. In 1930 a tornado damaged the original third floor and tower; this was followed by water damage and bats in the attic (oh how I wish it had been in a belfry). However, reconstruction was finally completed in 2003, preserving one of the most unusual courthouses in Texas.

Cotton fields

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