Museum of the Plains

Perryton was a town made in a hurry. In 1919 the Panhandle and Santa Fe built a branch line across Ochiltree County, and most of the people of the town of Ochiltree and of Gray, Oklahoma, moved to the tracks. The new town was named for George M. Perry, a county judge, and had 2,000 people by 1920. Five grain elevators stood by 1925, and wheat, then oil and gas from the 1950s, carried it from there.

The Museum of the Plains has been part of the town since 1975. It moved to its present ground on North Main in 1978, when the 1899 railroad depot was brought onto the site, and its main building opened on August 28, 1981. It now spreads over more than four acres with five historic buildings and nearly 30,000 square feet of exhibits, built from more than 10,000 donated objects, ranging from American brilliant cut glass to quilts and the region's archaeology. A habitat exhibit shows the plains' animals.

The museum's favorite resident is a dog. John R. Erickson, whose family moved to Perryton in 1946 when he was a small boy, worked as a cowboy and ranch manager while he wrote stories. In 1982 he borrowed $2,000 to start his own press, Maverick Books, and the next year published the first book about Hank the Cowdog, Head of Ranch Security on a ranch in Ochiltree County. The series has run past eighty books. A life-size statue of Hank stands outside, and an exhibit inside shows his world.