The Thompson House

The house went up as Hereford was arguing over whether to be a city. On February 13, 1903, residents voted to incorporate, electing Ross W. Davis mayor and the lawman Ira Aten among the five aldermen, but disgruntled losers led by C. G. Witherspoon won a referendum annulling the vote. In 1906 the town reincorporated and elected Judge L. Gough mayor, and under his administration the streets were improved. Electric power and telephone service arrived in the same years, and a county hospital opened in the 1920s, ending the era of home nursing the plaque describes.

What the plaque says

The Thompson House Land developer S. S. Evants built this home in 1906. The following year Alex Thompson (1883-1956) bought the house and then sold it to his mother Jennie Thompson in 1908. Thompson, his wife Audrey (Argo), and their two daughters lived here with his mother and her sister Jessie Morris. "Aunt Jennie" and "Aunt Jessie" nursed patients and helped deliver babies in this home until a hospital was erected in 1924. District judges, court reporters, students, Baptist preachers and singers boarded here. The Thompson family were leaders in church and community affairs. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Deaf Smith County Historical Museum — 0.4 mi
  Hereford's county museum in an early Catholic school: the Windmill City's pioneers, a half-dugout and caboose outside, and work by the Italian prisoners held south of town in the war.
• Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 18 mi
  A 1938 Depression-era lake on Tierra Blanca Creek that has gone dry, now 7,664 acres of shortgrass, cottonwood canyon and a prairie dog town on the High Plains south of Umbarger.

More markers nearby

• Hereford Christian College — steps away
• Mothers Park — 0.3 mi
• Two-Wheel Fire Hose Reel — 0.4 mi
• Deaf Smith County — 0.5 mi