Park Named for William A. Carroll, M.D.

Carroll came in 1914 to a Claude that was growing into a farm town. After 1900 it incorporated, A. P. McCubbins installed the first telephone system and W. A. Wilson started an abstract company, and a flour mill and a grain company marked its rise as an agribusiness center. Residents filled their time with a community baseball league, the town band and an annual chautauqua each August. For years Claude had the only official-size gymnasium in the area, and the West Texas State College basketball team played there often. In 1930 the town counted 1,041 residents.

What the plaque says

Park Named for William A. Carroll, M.D. (April 13, 1875-April 22, 1960) Born in Chester County, Tenn., son of Joseph Cyrus and Emily Kirk Carroll. Married Claudia Haltom, 1900. Graduated 1901 from University of Tennessee. Moved to Claude, 1914. In career of 54 years, delivered over 2500 babies. A staunch Democrat; a Mason and a Shriner; charter member, Claude Lions Club; director, First State Bank of Claude; president, Potter County Medical Association, he was honored, 1950, when city of Claude named this park for him. Dr. and Mrs. Carroll had four children: Kirk, Ralph, Perry, and Roberta. The son Ralph became a physician in Amarillo. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Gem Theatre — 0.3 mi
  Claude's small-town movie house of 1915, restored by the Armstrong County Museum and remembered for the scene in Hud where Homer and Lonnie Bannon sing along to Clementine.
• Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The two-story house the Goodnights moved into on December 27, 1887, after leaving the JA, with a porch that looks over bison descended from the calves Mary Ann saved.
• Carson County Square House Museum — 17 mi
  The 1880s ranch cottage that is the oldest house in the town of Panhandle, at the heart of a twenty-one-building museum of the plains from mammoth hunters to the oil boom.
• Lighthouse Trail — 20 mi
  The park's most walked trail, 2.8 miles each way across the canyon floor to the Lighthouse, a hoodoo of Triassic sandstone balanced on a pedestal of softer red shale.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Claude — steps away
• Armstrong County — 0.3 mi
• Dr. and Mrs. Wm. A. Warner — 0.3 mi
• Route of Coronado Expedition — 0.3 mi