Lynn County

Once the county organized, farmers pushed the ranchers off most of the land. Between 1900 and 1910 the number of farms rose from five to 201 and improved land from 246 acres to 20,108. Corn and grains came first, but by 1910 cotton led, and cotton acreage climbed from 23,085 in 1920 to 204,005 in 1930. Population followed, from seventeen in 1900 to 12,372 in 1930. Wilson, founded in 1912 on newly opened Dixie Ranch land, drew Central Texas Germans in a migration that lasted into the 1950s.

What the plaque says

Lynn County Created 1876 from Bexar Territory. Name honors G. W. Lynn, "One of those who baptized the altar of Texas with life blood at the Alamo". Tahoka Lake and Double Lakes Springs were watering places on Indian, Spanish, U. S. Army and cattle-driving trails. This was home land of nomadic Indians; visited by Spaniards, 1500s-1800s; used by New Mexicans grazing large herds of sheep in 1860s; site of last great buffalo hunts and the U. S. Cavalry's drive against Comanches, 1874-1877. Last cowboy-Indian skirmish occurred 1879 at Double Lakes. Earliest open-range cattlemen settled here in 1880s. First schools, Lynn and T-Bar, opened in 1902. In April 1903, county was organized, with Tahoka as county seat. The first officials: M. L. Elliott, county judge; S. N. McDaniel, county and district clerk; C. H. Doak, sheriff and tax assessor; W. E. Porterfield, surveyor; J. E. Ketner, H. E. Baldridge, B. Humphries, and W. T. Petty, commissioners. The Santa Fe Railroad built to this point in 1910. This has since become a major agricultural area, ranking among top ten cotton counties in Texas-- and one of the top twenty in the United States. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Slaton Harvey House — 21 mi
  A 1912 Santa Fe Harvey House in the railroad town of Slaton, restored as a museum, event hall and five-room inn overlooking a working BNSF yard.
• Garza County Historical Museum — 24 mi
  The county museum of Post, C. W. Post's planned town below the Caprock, kept in the stone sanitarium the town opened in 1912 as the best-equipped medical building west of Fort Worth.

More markers nearby

• Tahoka — steps away
• Lynn County — 4.0 mi
• Site of Mackenzie Cavalry Camp — 11 mi
• Grasslands — 12 mi