The Block 97 Controversy

The Handbook of Texas says the controversy kept ranchers and homesteaders aroused for years and turned on 612,000 acres, mostly in Scurry County. Homesteaders claimed land against the voided purchase rights of ranchers, who in the end had to buy their land again to keep it. The county grew quickly anyway. In 1890 it had 184 farms and ranches, 1,415 people, almost 23,000 cattle and 17,000 sheep. By 1900 it had 586 farms and ranches and 4,158 people, and more than 7,400 acres were in cotton, by then its most important crop.

What the plaque says

Notorious county land dispute arising from state practice of paying railroads in public land for trackage laid. Began in 1873 when Houston & Texas Central claimed, in error, some 300,000 acres of Block 97 which were in reserve for Texas & Pacific. Found in 1882, the error voided all deeds from H. & T.C. for lots in the reserve. Much land was unscrupulously resold, causing a decade of conflict over claims. Issue was decided only when 1899 Legislature, on authority of State Supreme Court, declared land to be state school land and gave settlers option to buy. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Scurry County Museum — 5.8 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.
• Heart of West Texas Museum — 25 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.

More markers nearby

• Channel of Deep Creek — 4.5 mi
• City of Snyder — 4.6 mi
• Home County of Famous Frontiersman J. Wright Mooar — 4.7 mi
• Scurry County's Canyon Reef Oil Field — 4.7 mi