Hemphill County Ranches

Hemphill County Ranches, Rivers, & Railroads

SPRINGER RANCH

The Springer Ranch was the first ranch in the Panhandle, but because of its brief, checkered life, as opposed to the still-extant JA Ranch, the latter also claims that honor.

After the Red River War, in the spring of 1875 A. G. (Jim) Springer appropriated a spot of land in present Hemphill County on Boggy Creek just north of its junction with the Canadian River. Here he constructed a multiroom dugout to serve as a general store, hotel, and saloon, as well as living quarters.

In addition, he dug a tunnel from the all-purpose roadhouse to a nearby corral and stable that he built out of pickets. Since Springer's hostelry was on the military route from Fort Supply to Fort Elliott, it quickly became a supply depot and gathering place for transient buffalo hunters, soldiers, and cowboys. Black troops stationed at Fort Elliott, in particular, found it the only place in the Panhandle where they were welcome to play cards and enjoy good whiskey and tobacco.

"Old Springer" soon won considerable notoriety as a shrewd poker player. His roadhouse later became a regular stagecoach stop, and in October 1878 a post office was established there under the name of Boggy Station. However, it was closed after only two months' operation, and mail was routed to Fort Supply.

Springer's role as a frontier rancher began by chance. In 1875 an outfit driving a herd of 2,000 cattle crossed the Canadian River near the roadhouse rather than at the usual crossing on the trail some distance to the east. These cowmen sold Springer 300 head and left a young trail hand, Tom Leadbetter, to help manage them.

Springer, however, enlisted Leadbetter to wait on customers at the store and bar, while the cattle, which bore their new owner's hastily burned AGS brand, freely roamed the nearby range with little attention from anyone. In 1877 the two men began constructing a "real house" from carefully selected cottonwood pickets, with a thatch and dirt roof. One added feature was a blockhouse loopholed on all sides to accommodate gun barrels in case of an Indian attack.

On November 17, 1878, Springer and Leadbetter were killed in a gunfight with disgruntled buffalo soldiers over a poker game. They were buried at the ranch. A subsequent army investigation at Mobeetie resulted in the troopers' acquittal.

The ranch entered a new phase after Jim Springer's brother sold the business to men named Tuttle and Chapman from Dodge City. Before long Tuttle bought out Chapman's interest, married in Mobeetie, and personally operated the Springer Ranch for the next two years. He adopted a CT brand, perhaps after his initials, and increased the herd to 1,800 head.

Tuttle also blazed a more direct route than the Jones and Plummer Trail north to Dodge City, where he periodically sold cattle and bought supplies. The Tuttle Trail was subsequently used by other area ranchers. During Tuttle's brief tenure, the post office was reestablished in September 1879 under the name Springer Ranch; it remained in operation until February 1885.

In 1881 Tuttle sold out to a Denver horse ranch partnership, the Rhodes and Aldridge Company. Rhodes was the son of a wealthy manufacturer in Aston Mills, near Philadelphia, and Reginald Aldridge was English. They changed the brand to Quarter Circle U and operated the ranch as absentee owners, although Aldridge did spend his summers there. It was from his experiences here that he wrote a lively range-cattle guidebook, Ranch Notes (1884).

Rhodes and Aldridge reorganized their Texas holdings as the Springer Ranch Company. As manager they hired Mose Wesley Hays, an experienced cowman who, with his brother-in-law Joseph Morgan, had driven cattle to Hemphill County from Padre Island in 1878. His wife, Lou Turner Hays, became legendary among area cowboys for her hospitality.

Around 1889 the Springer Ranch Company sold out all its holdings piecemeal. The former roadhouse was abandoned, and the ranch gradually ceased to exist. The Hays family settled on Commission Creek in Lipscomb County south of Higgins, where Lou Hays died in 1910. Bonnie Hays Lake, near their homesite, bears the name of their daughter.

Mose Hays, who at one time ran a general merchandise store in Canadian, later remarried and moved to San Antonio, where he died in 1938. Since the 1940s part of the Springer roadhouse site has been covered by Lake Marvin.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reginald Aldridge, Life on a Ranch: Ranch Notes in Kansas, Colorado, the Indian Territory, and Northern Texas (New York: Appleton, 1884; rpt., New York: Argonaut Press, 1966). Angie Debo, ed., Cowman's Southwest: Being the Reminiscences of Oliver Nelson (Glendale, California: Clark, 1953). Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939). Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981). F. Stanley, Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953). Lonnie J. White, comp., "Dodge City Times, 1877-1885," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 40 (1967).

H. Allen Anderson

TEXAS LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY

The Texas Land and Cattle Company, Limited, was a syndicate in Dundee, Scotland, organized to take advantage of the American Southwest's "Beef Bonanza" in the early 1880s. Robert Fleming was among its wealthy British shareholders.

Its promoters in the United States were Frank L. Underwood and William A. Clark, who set up their business firm in Kansas City and handled the company's records. Early in 1882 the syndicate purchased Mifflin Kenedy's Laureles Ranch, south of Corpus Christi, for $1.1 million. It also bought the Horseshoe Ranch, on Lake Creek in southeastern Hemphill County, and a portion of the Gunter-Munson survey along the Canadian River valley.

By 1883 the Texas Land and Cattle Company controlled 80,000 acres of land. In addition to the "lower ranch," it held vast acreage from Lake and Cat creeks in Hemphill County to Cheyenne, in Indian Territory. This northern Panhandle range was used primarily for steers, which seldom numbered above 10,000. The cows and calves, numbering around 80,000, were kept on the range downstate.

The cattle on both ranges carried the Laurel Leaf brand, which the syndicate purchased and registered in 1883. At its peak the company owned at least thirteen ranches in Texas and Indian Territory. However, its prosperity was short-lived. The price of beef fell. Also, range records revealed discrepancies in the inventories of purchasing agents, and the investors actually owned far fewer cattle than was supposed.

Although new agents were sent from Scotland to try to mend the situation, that action came too late. New land laws likewise led to the company's demise; in 1885 the state of Texas billed the properties in Hemphill County a lease fee of three cents an acre. In the winter of 1886-87, after several thousand cattle had been driven to the Panhandle from South Texas, severe blizzards destroyed close to 75 percent of them.

Consequently the syndicate gradually sold out all of its Panhandle lands by 1888, and the Laureles property went back to the King and Kenedy families by 1906. By 1910 the Texas Land and Cattle Company was ended.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Angie Debo, ed., Cowman's Southwest: Being the Reminiscences of Oliver Nelson (Glendale, California: Clark, 1953). W. G. Kerr, Scottish Capital on the American Credit Frontier (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1976). Tom Lea, The King Ranch (2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown, 1957). Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939).

H. Allen Anderson

PO RANCH

The PO Ranch was established by the brothers Milton and Hammond Pollard of Pueblo County, Colorado, from whose name the brand was derived. Having known Charles Goodnight in Pueblo, the Pollards wanted to raise cattle in the recently opened Panhandle.

In 1878 they drove the first PO herd to the Canadian valley and located their headquarters on Elk Creek, between the divide of the Canadian and Washita rivers and about six miles east of the site of present Canadian in Hemphill County. William Young, who had an interest in the stock, was the first foreman of the ranch. William H. Hopkins and Edward H. Brainard were also among the cowboys who helped drive the herd from Colorado.

About 1879 the English immigrant Robert Moody, who had known the Pollards in Pueblo, joined them at the ranch. Two years later he bought out Milton Pollard's share and was in business with Hammond Pollard for a year. In 1882 Hammond sold out his interest to J. B. Andrews, a merchant from Pueblo. By then the PO Ranch controlled a fifteen-square-mile spread east and south of the Canadian townsite.

On the ranch approximately 6,000 head of cattle grazed. The PO cattle were driven annually over the Rath Trail to Dodge City for shipment to Kansas City, and supplies were freighted to the ranch from there and Mobeetie, thirty miles to the south. In 1884 the Moody-Andrews Land and Cattle Company began leasing neighboring sections.

The Big Die-up of 1886-a year of drought, cold, and low market demand for beef in which thousands of cattle died on the plains-prompted Andrews to sell out his interest, leaving Moody in undisputed possession of the PO. As sole owner, Moody began drilling water wells, an operation often hindered by quicksand. However, the service he rendered the PO enabled it to survive new land laws, a decline in cattle prices, and the elements.

When the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway built through in 1887, Moody moved his headquarters to Red Deer Creek southeast of Canadian. Taking advantage of new state legislation making railroad and school land available for purchase, Moody bought 15,000 acres south of the Canadian River for seventy-five cents an acre. He joined other ranchers in erecting windmills on his range so that even the farthest pastures would have water.

With one of his sons, Thomas, Moody formed the Robert Moody and Son Cattle Company. Additions in various parts of Hemphill County brought the PO holdings to more than 100 sections. Thomas T. McGee, who had bought out Will Young's interest, served as foreman; he later became sheriff of Hemphill County and was killed in the line of duty at Canadian in 1894.

Under Moody's leadership the PO, from 1885 to 1895, saw a period of transformation from open range and line riders to fenced pastures, blooded Herefords, and systematic business methods. Even so, the ranch declined in size and importance after the elder Moody turned it over to his heirs and moved, first to Kansas City in 1900 and later to Long Beach, California.

Over the succeeding years, particularly after Moody's death in 1915, the PO Ranch was sold piecemeal to farmers and smaller ranchers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. H. Brainard, Interview by J. Evetts Haley, July 19, 1926, Interview Files, Research Center, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas. Margaret Moody Gerlach, "Robert Moody, 1838-1915," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 4 (1931). W. H. Hopkins, Interview by L. F. Sheffy, December 28, 1929, Interview Files, Research Center, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas. Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939). Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981). F. Stanley, Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).

H. Allen Anderson

LAUREL LEAF RANCH

The Laurel Leaf, or Horseshoe, Ranch had its beginning in 1878, when Frank Karrick first brought cattle to the Lake Creek range in southeastern Hemphill County, between the Canadian and Washita rivers. Karrick established the Horseshoe Ranch, but by 1879 he had sold it to J. V. Andrews, who in turn sold out to a man named Burdick.

William H. (Bee) Hopkins, who was made foreman of the Horseshoe by Andrews, later commented that this rapid succession of owners "sold the outfit...so fast that I didn't know who to check on."

In 1882 the Texas Land and Cattle Company bought rights to the range around Lake Creek and added to it a portion of the Gunter-Munson survey along the Canadian River, centered around Cat Creek, a tributary. Soon afterward the syndicate began using the Laurel Leaf brand in place of the Horseshoe.

The Laurel Leaf brand was first registered on April 18, 1868, in Nueces and Cameron counties by Mifflin Kenedy. It was derived from the name of his ranch, Los Laureles, after the laurel trees on the property. When the Texas Land and Cattle Company bought the Laureles Ranch it also purchased the brand and maintained the South Texas ranch as a division of its holdings.

By 1883 the syndicate had registered the brand in Hemphill County; the brand was altered for the trail. Steers were the specialty of the Laurel Leaf's northern range, which at its peak extended into Roger Mills County, Indian Territory, while cows and calves were left on the Laureles division downstate. The number of steers in the regular herd along the Canadian River seldom attained more than 10,000.

Some of these were often sold as food to reservation Indians. Hopkins was maintained by the company as range foreman for the Laurel Leaf, and Edgar Wilson, a native of Iowa, was hired as general manager. Wilson's domineering attitude and attempts to run off nesters and small stockmen created friction between him and other ranch employees.

In 1885 the state of Texas demanded payment of a lease from the company on threat of eviction, causing Hopkins and other employees to fear ruin.

Such fears were realized in 1888, when reverses from land legislation, falling cattle prices, and severe weather compelled the Texas Land and Cattle Company to sell its Panhandle holdings. Part of the Laurel Leaf range went to the YL Ranch of Beaver County, Oklahoma, with Charles Rheynerson as range foreman.

The new owners moved the headquarters from Lake Creek to Oasis Creek, north of the Canadian River, and added 11,400 Laurel Leaf cattle to their original herd. A few months after the purchase the YL company decided to close out its entire holdings and shipped five carloads of cattle a week to Chicago from Higgins, until the entire YL herd was transported and sold to northern markets.

A smaller portion of the old Laurel Leaf range went to its longtime foreman, Bee Hopkins, and his brother Joseph Houston, who made it into a successful ranching enterprise in which David M. Hargrave served as manager. Hopkins continued to use the Laurel Leaf brand for some time.

In 1901 Robert Driscoll sold it to Henrietta M. King. In turn, Mrs. King gave the right to use it to John G. Kenedy, who used it for horses. After his death the brand was inherited by his daughter, Sarita Kenedy East, whose heirs still use it.

Since 1883 several ranches in South and West Texas have used a modified horseshoe brand, most notably the Reilly, Lee, and Childress ranch in Tom Green County.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gus L. Ford, ed., Texas Cattle Brands (Dallas: Cockrell, 1936). Tom Lea, The King Ranch (2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown, 1957). Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of Panhandle Pioneers (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945). Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939). Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981).

H. Allen Anderson

BLACK KETTLE NATIONAL GRASSLAND

Black Kettle National Grassland is on Farm Road 2266 twelve miles east of Canadian in Hemphill County, Texas, and Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.

The 31,576-acre preserve was purchased during the 1930s by the United States Department of the Interior under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act in an effort to return some of the badly eroded land of the Dust Bowl to its natural state.

The preserve, which includes Lake Marvin, is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service under a policy of multiple use for range, watershed, recreation, and wildlife.

Open grasslands, marshes, and woodlands provide habitats for wildlife ranging from deer and turkeys to wood ducks and barred owls.

Recreational facilities at the grassland include several cabins, hiking trails, and camping and picnicking areas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: George Oxford Miller, Texas Parks and Campgrounds: Central, South, and West Texas (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1984).

Christopher Long

CANADIAN RIVER

The Canadian River, the largest tributary of the Arkansas River, rises in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in southern Las Animas County, Colorado, near Raton Pass and the boundary line with Colfax County, New Mexico (at 37�01' N, 105�03' W), and flows south and southeastward, separating the Llano Estacado from the northern High Plains.

It is roughly 760 miles long; a stretch of about 190 miles is in Texas. The river is dammed to form the Conchas and Ute reservoirs in northeastern New Mexico before it enters Texas at about the midpoint of the western boundary of Oldham County.

The Canadian crosses the Panhandle, flowing eastward and northeastward through Oldham, Potter, Moore, Hutchinson, Roberts, and Hemphill counties. Most of the river's course across the Panhandle passes through a gorge 500 to 800 feet below the plateau. Particularly in its lower reaches in Oklahoma, the riverbed contains great amounts of quicksand; this and the deep gorge make the river difficult to bridge.

A tributary, the North Canadian, heads in Union County, New Mexico (at 36�30' N, 102�09' W), and flows briefly into the northern Texas Panhandle before continuing on to its confluence with the river in McIntosh County, Oklahoma (at 36�30' N, 101�55' W). After crossing the state line back into Oklahoma, the Canadian River flows generally southeastward to its mouth on the Arkansas River, twenty miles east of Canadian in Haskell County, Oklahoma (at 35�27' N, 95�02' W).

According to some sources, the river's name came from early explorers who thought that it flowed into Canada. Among the Canadian's principal tributaries in Texas are Big Blue, Tallahone, Red Deer, Pedarosa, Punta Agua, Amarillo, Tascosa, and White Deer creeks.

The Texas portion of the Canadian River is noted for archeological sites where extensive remains of Pueblo Indian culture have been found. Some historians have said that Quivira Province, long sought by Francisco V�squez de Coronado, was on the Canadian. The Canadian is probably the stream that Juan de O�ate called the Magdalena in 1601.

The area was Comanche country until the latter part of the 1800s, but the stream was well known to the Comancheros, to Josiah Gregg, and to others engaged in trade out of St. Louis or Santa Fe. Lt. James William Abert of the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers explored the river in 1845 and made an extensive report of its physical features and of the Indians whom he encountered. With the decimation of the buffalo, cattlemen replaced Indians in the area, and, except for oil developments, the Canadian valley in Texas remained in 1949 principally a ranching area.

The river is dammed to form Lake Meredith forty miles northeast of Amarillo near Sanford in Hutchinson County. The Panhandle Water Conservation Authority as early as 1949 was contemplating construction of Sanford Dam to create a reservoir of some 1,305,000 acre-feet capacity that would furnish a municipal water supply for eleven Panhandle cities and serve the secondary purposes of flood control, soil conservation, recreation, and promotion of wildlife; actual impoundment of water did not begin until 1965.

Lake Meredith is named for A. A. Meredith, who was executive secretary of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority. An aqueduct to serve Pampa, Amarillo, Lubbock, Lamesa, Borger, Levelland, Littlefield, O'Donnell, Slaton, and Tahoka was estimated to cost $54 million. Cities purchasing the water would repay the major part of the cost of the project over a period of fifty years.

The Canadian River Compact Commissioner, appointed in 1951, negotiates with other states regarding the water of the Canadian. The National Park Service assumed management of recreational facilities at Lake Meredith in 1965.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Summary of the Preliminary Plan for Proposed Water Resources Development in the Canadian River Basin (Austin: Texas Water Development Board, 1966). Texas Planning Board, The Canadian River Basin in Texas (Austin, 1936). U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, Guadal P'a: The Journal of Lieutenant J. W. Abert, from Bent's Fort to St. Louis in 1845 (Canyon, Texas: Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1941).

Hobart Huson

CLEAR CREEK

Clear Creek rises at the junction of its two branches in north central Hemphill County (at 36�04' N, 100�19' W) and runs south ten miles to its mouth on the Canadian River, at the southern boundary of the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area (at 35�56' N, 100�19' W).

The surrounding flat terrain with occasional rolling hills is surfaced by sand that supports sparse grasses and herbs.

WASHITA RIVER

The Washita River rises in southeastern Roberts County (at 35�38' N, 100�36' W) and flows east for thirty-five miles, crossing southern Hemphill County to enter Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. From the state line the stream flows southeast for 260 miles to its junction with the Red River (at 33�55' N, 96�35' W) in Johnston County, Oklahoma.

On its course through Texas, the river flows through flat to rolling country where clay and sandy loams support brush and grasses. Since the stream was a favorite campground for nomadic tribes, the upper Washita was the scene of much military activity during the sporadic Indian wars; Col. George A. Custer's attack on Black Kettle's village, known as the battle of the Washita, occurred near present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma, on November 27, 1868.

The Indian siege of Capt. Wyllys Lyman's wagon train took place near the Washita in Hemphill County on September 9-14, 1874. Hide hunters frequented the upper Washita, as did early ranchers, for whom the stream was a favorite place to water their herds.

In recent years a series of dams and small reservoirs has been constructed along the Washita and its tributaries in Hemphill County.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lester Fields Sheffy, The Francklyn Land & Cattle Company (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1963).

BOGGY CREEK

Boggy Creek rises at the junction of its two branches in northeastern Hemphill County (at 36�00' N, 100�11' W) and runs south for eight miles to its mouth on the Canadian River (at 33�53' N, 100�11' W). It is dammed near its mouth to form Kiowa and Marvin lakes.

The ranch and roadhouse of the mysterious A. G. (Jim) Springer were on this creek in the mid-1870s. Later the Rhodes and Aldridge Company ranched in this area.

The local terrain is marked by high relief and is surfaced with sandy soil in which grow sparse grasses and nongrassy herbs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981).

NEEDMORE CREEK

Needmore Creek rises in central Hemphill County (at 35�48' N, 100�13' W) and runs north for five miles to its mouth (at 35�52' N, 100�12' W) on the Canadian River.

The land is flat to rolling with local escarpments, surfaced with deep, fine, sandy loams that support hardwoods, brush, and grasses.

HORSE CREEK

Horse Creek rises in two branches in southwestern Lipscomb County (at 36�07' N, 100�27' W) and runs south for twelve miles, through flat to rolling terrain surfaced by deep fine sandy loams, before reaching its mouth on the Canadian River, in northwestern Hemphill County (at 35�57' N, 100�27' W).

Local vegetation includes brush and grasses. The stream was part of the Cresswell Ranch range and on the route of the Jones and Plummer Trail.

RED DEER CREEK

Red Deer Creek rises at the breaks of the Llano Estacado northeast of Pampa in northern Gray County (at 35�33' N, 100�60' W) and flows northeast for thirty-five miles, across southeastern Roberts County through Miami, to its mouth on the Canadian River, near Canadian in western Hemphill County (at 35�56' N, 100�23' W).

Robert Moody established his PO Ranch headquarters on Red Deer Creek, and the stream's upper waters were part of the Diamond F ranges.

The area is flat with local shallow depressions; water-tolerant hardwoods, conifers, and grasses grow in clay and sandy loam soils.

LAKE MARVIN

Lake Marvin, also known as Boggy Creek Lake, is an artificial lake constructed in the 1930s on Boggy Creek in east central Hemphill County (at 35�53' N, 100�11' W) by the Panhandle Water Conservation Authority primarily for soil conservation, flood control, recreation, and promotion of wildlife.

The reservoir has a capacity of 553 acre-feet and was named in honor of Marvin Jones, retired judge of the United States Supreme Court of Claims.

The Panhandle National Grassland surrounds it, and the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area, named for the Amarillo journalist and conservationist Eugene A. Howe, is located to the west on Farm Road 2266.

GAGEBY CREEK

Gageby Creek rises eight miles northwest of Mobeetie in northwestern Wheeler County (at 35�37' N, 100�30' W) and runs east, then northeast, for a total of fifteen miles before reaching its mouth on the Washita River, seventeen miles southeast of Canadian in Hemphill County (at 35�43' N, 100�09' W).

The stream runs through flat to rolling terrain with some local escarpments. Local vegetation consists mainly of mesquite shrubs and grasses in deep fine sandy loam.

The creek was named for Capt. James Harrison Gageby of the Third Infantry, who campaigned against Indians in the area.

The Buffalo Wallow Fight of September 12, 1874, occurred on the divide north of the creek, and the town of Gageby was established near its north bank.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, a series of dams and small lakes was constructed on the stream's upper waters in Wheeler County.

CLINTON-OKLAHOMA-WESTERN RAILWAY

The Clinton-Oklahoma-Western Railroad Company of Texas was chartered on July 30, 1927, to build a line from the Oklahoma state line in Hemphill County, Texas, to Pampa, in Grayson County.

The line was projected as the Texas extension of the Clinton and Oklahoma Western Railroad Company, which operated from Clinton, Oklahoma, to the Oklahoma-Texas line. The initial capital was $100,000, and the business office was originally located at Wichita Falls.

Members of the first board of directors included Joe A. Fell of Vernon and Frank Kell, C. W. Cahoon, Jr., T. P. Duncan, L. N. Bassett, O. B. Womack, M. G. Scovell, Charles Crowell, Leslie Humphrey, and T. R. Boone, all of Wichita Falls.

In June 1928 the Clinton and Oklahoma Western and the Clinton-Oklahoma-Western Railroad Company of Texas were acquired by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company.

The fifty-six miles between Pampa and the state line was completed in 1929, and in 1931 an eleven mile branch was built from Heaton to Coltexo.

Also, in 1931, the companies were leased to the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway Company, which operated them until they were merged into the latter company on December 31, 1948.

Chris Cravens