Whiteflat

Whiteflat grew up inside a cotton boom. Farming spread once the Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railroad laid track through Motley County, and farms and ranches rose from 537 in 1920 to 910 in 1930. Then the Depression and Dust Bowl reversed it. Tenant farmers were hit hardest, falling from 587 in 1930 to 326 in 1935 and 282 by 1940, and the county's population slid from 6,812 to 4,994 over that decade. Mechanization kept it sliding for fifty years, to 1,532 by 1990.

What the plaque says

Whiteflat This area of Motley County was first called "Whiteflat" due to the tall white needlegrass which covered the flat prairie land. A post office, named Whiteflat, was established for the rural settlement in 1890 at the request of W. R. Tilson. At its height, the community boasted four grocery stores, three service stations, three garages, two cafes, a hardware store, two gins, and three churches. A school, first housed in a one-room schoolhouse built by volunteers, opened in 1890. It was replaced by a four-room school in 1908, and in 1922 a new two-story brick structure was erected. It also served as a community gathering place. Dependent on an economy based on agriculture and small family farms, the community began to decline as a result of the Depression and dust bowl years of the 1930s. The Whiteflat School closed in 1946, when it was consolidated with Matador Schools. The local churches disbanded in the 1960s; the post office closed in 1966 following the death of the last postmaster, Ida Morris; and the last remaining retail business, a grocery store and service station, closed in 1968. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Motley County Historical Museum — 7.5 mi
  Matador's museum in the 1928 Traweek Hospital, in the county seat a Scottish-owned ranch created by having its cowboys open one-day businesses to pass a state rule.
• Bob Wills Museum — 20 mi
  The old Turkey school, now holding Bob Wills's boots, hats, his father's fiddle and his barbershop tools, in the cotton town that fills each April for Bob Wills Day.
• Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway — 23 mi
  Red canyons below the Caprock escarpment where the Texas State Bison Herd, descended from calves Mary Ann Goodnight saved in 1878, has right of way on the park roads.

More markers nearby

• Bob's Oil Well — 7.4 mi
• The Motley County Railroad — 7.7 mi
• Motley County — 8.2 mi
• Cottonwood Mott Line Camp — 9.5 mi