Higgins

Settlement began in 1886, when Santa Fe surveyors were marking the Southern Kansas extension and E. C. Gray and the brothers James and George Patton filed claims and built homes on the survey sections. B. H. Eldridge and E. B. Purcell laid out the town the next year, and by 1888 it had a post office, a school, a saloon, a hotel, a livery stable and several stores. Higgins incorporated in 1908, remodeling its downtown in 1911 and again in 1929. The Higgins News has been published since 1897, replacing the Courier of 1888.

What the plaque says

Town platted, post office opened and first train arrived, 1887. Named for G. H. Higgins, wealthy railroad stockholder. Early cattle shipping point. Devastating tornado struck April 9, 1947. An estimated 45 were killed, 140 injured. Ranching, farming, and oil are chief area industries. Oil drilling was begun in 1957. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Marvin — 18 mi
  A small 1930s conservation lake on Boggy Creek east of Canadian, named for the Panhandle congressman whose name is on the 1937 law that turned the plains' ruined farms back to grass.
• Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area — 20 mi
  Five thousand acres of sand sage and cottonwood bottomland along the Canadian River east of Canadian, bought by the state in 1950 for wildlife research and open to walkers with a permit.
• Canadian River Wagon Bridge — 23 mi
  The longest pin-connected bridge in Texas, 3,255 feet of Parker trusses across the Canadian River at Canadian, built for wagons in 1916 and reopened as a footpath in 2000.
• River Valley Pioneer Museum — 24 mi
  The Hemphill County museum in Canadian, a Santa Fe division town of 1887 on the river breaks that held one of the first commercial rodeos in Texas and voted itself dry in 1903.

More markers nearby

• Will Rogers — steps away
• Lipscomb County — 1.7 mi
• Lipscomb Union Church — 16 mi
• Lipscomb School — 16 mi