Tascosa grew at an easy ford of the Canadian River. In 1876 New Mexican sheepmen under Casimero Romero settled the creek valley as Plaza Atascosa, building adobe houses and irrigation ditches. The big ranches came in behind them, the LIT, LX, LS, Frying Pan and later the XIT, and Tascosa became their supply town and the stop on the cattle trail to Dodge City. When Oldham County was organized in 1880 the town became its seat, and a stone courthouse went up in 1884. In 1883 cowboys from the surrounding ranches struck there for higher wages, and lost.
The railroad crossed the county in 1887, and many businesses moved two miles to a new town on the tracks. In 1915 an election moved the county seat to Vega, and in 1939 the last resident, Frenchy McCormick, widow of the town's first saloon keeper, moved away. That year the rancher Julian Bivins gave 120 acres around the ghost town to Cal Farley, an Amarillo businessman and former wrestler, for a home for boys. Five boys moved into the old courthouse in March 1939, and it served as a dormitory until 1963, when it was renovated as the Julian Bivins Museum.
The museum keeps prehistoric and Native artifacts, cowboy and pioneer things and the history of the ranch. Cal Farley's Boys Ranch is a residential campus for children: all visitors check in at headquarters first, and adults are asked for photo ID.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour