Texas & Pacific Railway

Cotton, first planted in Mitchell County in 1898, became the leading crop after 1900, the Handbook of Texas says. It covered more than 32,000 acres in 1910, almost 48,000 in 1920 and more than 132,000 by 1930, while the number of farms rose from 232 in 1900 to 1,481 in 1930, 1,064 of them run by tenants. The county's population reached 14,183 that year. Drought and federal crop controls then cut cotton acreage by about half in the 1930s, hurting tenants most, and by 1940 the county had 1,119 farms and 12,477 people.

What the plaque says

Railroad made this "Cattle Capital of West Texas" in 1880s. Cattlemen Frank Byler, Clay Mann, Winfield Scott, C.C. Slaughter and others brought herds here early as 1877, when last of the buffalo were being exterminated. A Texas Ranger unit was stationed in area to guard against straggling Indians. After Texas & Pacific locators staked course through this valley, rancher George Waddell persuaded A.W. Dunn of Coleman to build a store here. Lumber came by wagon from Round Rock (about 300 mi. SE), and was sparingly used. Store had tarpaulin roof, dirt floor, and was opened in late summer 1880. Soon two saloons were also in business. Railroaders--including bridge crew of A.J. Coe--arrived in the fall. By April 16, 1881, when the Texas & Pacific initiated train service to this site, some 350 people lived here in tents and dugouts, and had a newly organized county government, a school, post office and newspaper. This was terminus for months, while river bridge was being built. Then and until late 80s, this was shipping point for such remote places as ranches of Charles Goodnight and the XIT, near present Amarillo. The T. & P. freighted in tons of windmills and barbed wire, shipped out thousands of cattle--giving this city renown. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heart of West Texas Museum — 0.2 mi
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.
• Lake Colorado City State Park — 5.7 mi
  A mesquite-plains park on a lake built in 1949 to cool a power plant, southwest of Colorado City, where controlled burns are bringing back the grassland and 300 bird species pass through.
• Scurry County Museum — 20 mi
  Snyder's county museum on the Western Texas College campus, with the rifle used to shoot the white buffalo, an 1878 chuckwagon and the millionth barrel of the Canyon Reef oil boom.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 24 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.

More markers nearby

• Buffalo Trails — 0.2 mi
• The Founding of Colorado City — 0.2 mi
• Mitchell County — 0.2 mi
• Col-Tex Refinery — 0.5 mi