Cora Vance and Vance Hatchery

Shallowater began as a railroad bargain. In 1909 rancher J. C. Bowles and Bob Crump formed a townsite company, bought land on May 18 and, after George W. Littlefield of the Yellow House Ranch paid the Santa Fe a bonus, incorporated the Ripley Townsite Company, named for a railroad official. The name Shallowater was chosen to attract settlers, and the town celebrated its founding and the finished railroad on June 26, 1913. It incorporated in 1955, and in 1970 its thirty businesses included one of the largest hatcheries in the county.

What the plaque says

Cora Vance and Vance Hatchery Born in Center, Shelby County, on October 26, 1905, hatchery industry pioneer Cora Lee Stapleton was the daughter of Sidney Clay and Kathleen (Gathwright) Stapleton. Growing up on the family farm, she was fascinated by the baby chicks and egg production. Cora met Clinton "Turk" Vance in the Hardy community, ten miles north of Shallowater. They married on October 19, 1929. A month later, Cora and her brother-in-law were involved in a significant car accident in Lubbock, leaving her paralyzed on the right side of her body. Cora slowly regained use of her limbs. Two years later, Cora heard about a farm for sale, and one day when Turk left for work, Cora used her good arm to drive to Lubbock and purchase the property. Turk oversaw their new farm's cotton crop and Cora began a hatchery, selling eggs locally. In 1938, she entered the commercial hatchery business with 400 chickens and one incubator. Two years later, Cora enlarged and relocated the hatchery to the highway. By 1953, Vance Hatchery produced 180 to 200 dozen eggs a day. Cora raised white leghorn chickens in-house and hatched only her own eggs, a rarity at the time. She insisted on the highest standards of cleanliness and health for her chickens. She was a member of the Texas Poultry Improvement Association and the American Hatchery and Poultry Federation. She was often the only woman at industry events. Other farmers sought her advice, leading to a radio show and expansion into poultry farm implement sales. By 1965, she was scaling down her business because hatcheries were moving away from West Texas and being undersold by larger enterprises. Cora died on March 25, 1967. The Vance family ran the hatchery until all remaining eggs and assets were sold. The story of Cora Vance is one of independence and determination. (2023)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lubbock Lake Landmark — 7.5 mi
  A bend of Yellow House Draw on Lubbock's north edge where digging has found nearly 12,000 years of people on the Southern High Plains, layer on layer, from Clovis to the 1880s.
• National Ranching Heritage Center — 9.2 mi
  A Texas Tech outdoor museum where ranch houses, barns, windmills and a depot from across the ranching country were moved one by one onto a single park beside the campus.
• Silent Wings Museum — 9.6 mi
  The museum of the American combat glider pilots of World War II, in Lubbock's old airport terminal on the field where most of them earned their wings.
• Buddy Holly Center — 12 mi
  The city's museum of Buddy Holly and West Texas music in a 1928 railway depot, with the house where the Crickets worked on That'll Be the Day moved next door.

More markers nearby

• Reese Air Force Base — 6.7 mi
• Carlisle Cemetery — 7.6 mi
• The Free Range Era of Ranching — 9.2 mi
• New Deal — 9.5 mi