Town of Goodnight

The first building at the townsite was the colonel's own ranch house of 1887, and the Fort Worth and Denver City soon added a station. A post office opened in November 1888 with Sam Dyer as postmaster, the JA's blacksmith R. M. Hathorn opened a shop, and the Goodnight News began in 1890 before merging with the Claude paper. The town counted 300 people and nine businesses in 1940, but Claude drew its trade away. The post office closed by 1969, and the 2000 census found eighteen residents.

What the plaque says

Town of Goodnight Named in honor of Charles Goodnight, 1836-1929, noted scout, Indian fighter and trail blazer who established the first ranch in the Texas Panhandle in 1876 and is also known as the Burbank of the Range

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site — 0.4 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.
• Gem Theatre — 11 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.
• Donley County Courthouse — 18 mi
  Bulger and Rapp's red brick and white stone courthouse of 1891, the oldest in use in the Panhandle, given back its third floor and towers in a 2003 restoration.
• Saints' Roost Museum — 18 mi
  Clarendon's county museum in the hospital Cornelia Adair built for JA cowboys in 1910, named for the nickname cowhands gave a Methodist town with no saloons.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old Goodnight College — steps away
• Charles Goodnight — 0.3 mi
• Site of Old Goodnight Ranch — 0.5 mi
• Armstrong County — 11 mi