USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume II > Part 18
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Less than twenty-five years ago the Panhandle of Texas was called "The Great American Desert." Today this same vast domain, comprising thirty-eight counties, produced in 1919 more wealth by $3,000,000 than the entire State of Texas produced in oil. Again the absurdity of such a statement that the Panhandle was a desert is evidenced by the fact that a Panhandle County took second prize at the Dallas Fair for having the second best agricultural exhibit of any county in Texas.
Amarillo, the Queen City of Plains, the hub of the Panhandle, or the capital of the Panhandle, as it is variously called, was called "Rag City" in 1887. That was the actual name of the little village, so named because most of the inhabitants lived in tents. A few years later a few shacks had been erected, and the present thriving city of 15,494 people was called Old Town.
Amarillo was not even a wide place in the road then, for the road was not wide. Nothing but cow paths tracked through the grass of the Plains. Antelope grazed on the same spot where the high school building now stands, according to Justice C. G. Landis, magistrate of Precinct two of Potter County.
This detail of Amarillo is but the same story of the other prosper- ous towns of the Panhandle. There was no Potter County then, nor, in fact, were there any of the other thirty-seven counties of the Pan- handle then in existence save only Wheeler and Oldham. Court for all of these counties, or all of this territory, then undivided into counties, was held at Tascosa in Oldham County and Mobeetie in Wheeler County. Justice in those days was meted out summarily. Still standing in "Boot Hill Cemetery," the actual name of the bury- ing ground at Tascosa, are the tombs of numbers of cowboys and desperadoes who died with their boots on.
This romantic history is given in brief to show that where thirty years ago Indians wandered and plundered. a country where the land was regarded as fit only for the steer to graze on, where no trail wider or straighter than a cow path existed, land now sells as high as $100 an acre and grows anything from wheat at 40 bushels to the acre, or onions that bring the grower $600 an acre, where the more ambitious of all parts of the United States not contented with small things in their own communities have gone West hunting larger opportunities, and where cow paths have given way to street car tracks.
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The Panhandle of Texas in 1919 produced wealth estimated at $135,000,000 in agricultural products alone. On top of this came millions in cattle. The oil wealth produced in Texas for the same year was $132,000,000. The wealth produced in 1920 was much greater, so far as amount of products is concerned. though decreasing prices may keep the monetary figures to about the same level.
The Panhandle is chiefly known for its production of wheat. This section of Texas could feed the nation for a long while. The
A CANYON IN THE PLAINS
estimated yield for the Panhandle for 1920 is 20,000,000 bushels. The federal government has accepted these figures. Three railway lines in the Panhandle have been unable to handle the enormous wheat crop. Thousands of bushels of grain remained for weeks piled in the fields. Farmers were unable to construct granaries to hold their crops.
Wheat in some sections averaged twenty-five bushels to the acre in 1920. On some few farms it averaged forty bushels to the acre. The acreage will probably be greatly increased this year on the South Plains.because of the low price of cotton.
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Maize crops, which for a long while people thought were the only cultivated grains that could be grown in the Panhandle, produced in 1920 about 6,700,000 bushels, according to estimates of the Pan- handle Grain Dealers' Association. Besides the grain, thousands of tons of the fodder were stacked to feed to cattle in the fall and winter.
A large part of this maize is fed to hogs, cattle and work animals, while a large part of it is shipped to California, where it is used mainly as chicken feed.
Besides these crops probably more than a hundred thousand bales of cotton are produced, Hall County alone having produced in 1919 about 35,000 bales. Oats are not raised as much as a few years ago.
The estimated yield for the Panhandle in 1919 was 10,000,000 bushels. This was probably overestimated by two or three million bushels, and it is certainly much less this year.
When it is considered that these enormous yields are raised in a territory where only twenty-seven per cent of a tillable seventy-one per cent is actually in cultivation, some slight conception of the enormous possibilities of this yet virgin territory may be seen. There are about 25,000,000 acres of land tributary to the wholesale trade territory of Amarillo alone. Forty-four per cent of this amount is yet subject to cultivation, but is still in broad pastures and ranches. Forty-two per cent of all the land in the Panhandle is owned by non- residents, but this is rapidly being sold. Seventy thousand acres near Farwell was recently put on sale in farms of 160 and 320 acres.
The average price of the land is $25, though some of it has sold for as high as $125 an acre, while some of it, of course, sells as low as $15.
Strange as it may seem in this "Great American Desert" thousands of acres are irrigated in what is known as the Shallow Water Belt. Hale, Deaf Smith, and part of Swisher counties are in the sure crop section.
Geologists say a great underground river, whose length is un- known, but whose width varies from eight to sixteen miles, flows under the ground through this section, rising to within forty feet of the surface in most of the section at present irrigated. This water is raised to the surface by gasoline pumps, and many large farms are now guaranteed against crop failure from drouth. Plainview and Hereford are towns built on this solid basis of a never failing crop.
Visits to the various county fairs held in the Panhandle counties this year would have convinced any skeptic that he was in one of the garden spots of America. Pumpkins weighing fifty pounds lay alongside wheat that won the world prize in 1919. Squashes weigh- ing forty-five pounds lay alongside onions that produced 6,000 pounds on a quarter of an acre. Corn that made forty bushels to the acre stood beside sudan grass over nine feet high. Every variety of vegetable known to the Texas horticulturist flourishes in the South Plains of the Panhandle. Fruits also grow in abundance in Lynn, Floyd, Lubbock, Hale and Deaf Smith counties, and of course in other counties, which have not yet realized so well the advantages of publicity.
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Over 300,000 people inhabit this territory. Few of them are poor, 's is often the case with rural people living in other sections of Texas The large majority of the farmers own their land, and many of them are in the well-to-do class. This population is at about the rate of eight persons to the square mile. The population has increased forty per cent in the last decade.
All wealth of the Panhandle is not potential. When figures for total bank deposits for the twelve months ending in May are given out as $61,109,039, it is evident that much of the wealth is actual. It is evidenced by the fact that few towns in the Panhandle this year had enough labor to supply the demands of building contractors. Not only were an unprecedented number of residences erected de-
CORN FIELD
spite high prices of building materials, but scores of new business houses went up.
Lubbock County showed an increased population of 167 per cent in the last ten years, while the city itself showed an increase of about 147 per cent. Hundreds of homes were built and thousands of acres put into cultivation by these newcomers.
That old saying about there being only a barbed wire fence be- tween Amarillo and the North Pole no longer amuses residents of the city. The Panhandle of Texas is the coldest part of the state in the winter, and it is the coolest in the summer. Comparison of temperature records for any other city in Texas, and as for that mat- ter, with the majority of them anywhere in the United States shows the mean here to be better adapted for human habitation than these othe; towns.
The average summer temperature for the most of the Panhandle is 69 degrees, and the average winter temperature is 43 degrees. The mean temperature in Amarillo for July during the past twenty-
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five years is 76 degrees. Those Panhandle winds still blow, it is true, but they become quieter each year, as the country becomes more thickly populated.
Thirty years ago, according to pioneers here, the wind sometimes blew seventy-five miles an hour, and one occasion is recalled by Jus- tice C. G. Landis when it blew at the rate of eighty-seven miles an hour. There was so much static electricity in the air that house- wives were sometimes unable to use cookstoves for twelve hours or longer at the time. The change in weather conditions during these thirty years is amazing to Justice Landis, he says.
Mammoth ranches in the Panhandle still furnish many train loads of beeves for the northern markets. Nearly all of the feed used is raised on the ranches or on adjoining farms, if, indeed it becomes at
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POTTER COUNTY COURT HOUSE, AMARILLO
all necessary to feed the cattle on more than pasture grass. The estimated wealth for a year in cattle of the Panhandle is above most sections. Hereford is the home of some of the finest Hereford herds in the world. Cattle from that section are taken every year to north- ern fairs, and so often as they are taken do they win prizes.
But the days of the cattle baron are waning even this far West. Big ranches are being cut into farms. Ranchers are beginning to break up their pastures for wheat planting. More than 100,000 acres of ranch lands were put on the markets during the past two months.
Agricultural and stock raising possibilities of the Panhandle were proved long ago, and these sources of wealth are now actualities. The great unproved source of wealth is the mammoth gas field thirty miles north of Amarillo. Since this field was admitted to be the greatest gas field in the world, it has been extended about ten miles and geologists say its bounds are yet indeterminate.
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The total daily production of gas is 530,000,000 cubic feet. The City of Amarillo, which is at present the only consumer of the gas, uses not over 4,000,000 cubic feet a day. This leaves 526,000,000 cubic feet idle. Manufacturers are becoming interested in the field.
Optimists of the Panhandle see a manufacturing city of 100,000 or inore people in the Panhandle within ten years. Two wells drilling within four miles of Amarillo are daily expected to bring in big gassers, which would eliminate expensive piping.
Oil showings have been found in several of the wells drilling in the Panhandle, and members of the oil fraternity confidently expect producers to be brought in within thirty days. Hence, it can be readily seen that the potential wealth in oil and gas is incalculable. It is a safe assumption, however, that the high price of coal will not bother Amarillo and other nearby towns for years to come.
1
CHAPTER XLIV PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
When Texas was admitted to the Union the treaty of annexation pro- vided that the Public Domain should remain the property of the state.
This provided the foundation for the most splendid educational fund of any state in the Union.
The Fathers of the Republic and the framers of the first constitution of the state very wisely provided that a large portion of the public domain
MAIN BUILDING AT A. & M. COLLEGE
should be set aside for public free schools, institutions of higher education and the eleemosynary institutions, and the legislature was directed to apportion these lands according to the needs of the several institutions. The constitutional convention of 1875 retained, and made still more ob- ligatory, these provisions.
When the state donated public lands to encourage the construction of railroads in the state it was ordained that the railway companies should survey the public lands, and alternate sections were set aside for the public schools of the state. Each county was accorded a league and labor of land, about 4,400 acres, for the public schools of the counties.
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The school lands were subsequently sold and leased, proceeds of the sale was devoted to the permanent school fund, and the interest on such lands as were sold on time and the money derived from leases to the available school fund.
The permanent school fund now has to its credit the sum of $72,865,- 496, on which there is an annual income of $10,252,619.
The county permanent fund has to its credit the sum of $12,751,493. Furthermore additional annual appropriations are made by the legislature to supplement the available fund for the maintenance of the educational institutions of the state and the public schools throughout ; and an annual levy is made on the taxable values for the same purpose.
The state, county and local maintenance fund for the years of 1920 and 1921 aggregate $28,658,013.88.
The value of school buildings in the state is $51,828,963, the grounds, $10,477,596; school furniture, $6,318,390; total, $72,824,694.
The number of teachers employed are, white, 24,530; colored, 3,820; a total of 28,350.
The number of pupils enrolled is, white, 860,123; colored, 175,525; a total of 1,035,648.
The total appropriations for the years 1920-21 is $18,564,507.49.
Free text books are provided for all the public schools of the state.
The institutions of higher education comprise the following: The State University at Austin, Texas, the Medical School, which is a branch of the State University at Galveston, Texas.
The Agricultural and Mechanical College at College Station, Texas, with the following branch schools: The John Tarleton Junior A and M College at Stephenville; the Grubb's Vocational School at Arlington and the colored A and M College at Prairie View.
State Normal Schools for the training and education of teachers are the Sam Houston Normal at Huntsville; the North Texas Normal at Denton ; the Southwest Texas Normal at San Marcus; the West Texas Normal at Canyon City ; the East Texas Normal at Commerce; the Sul Ross Normal at Alpine ; the College of Industrial Arts for Girls at Denton.
Other educational institutions are the state schools for the blind at Austin, one for white and one for colored pupils.
The Texas school for the deaf at Austin. The state training school for girls at Gainesville. The State Juvenile Training School for boys at Gatesville. The State School for feeble-minded at Austin. The State Orphans' Home at Corsicana. The eleemosynary institutions are three for the insane, located at Austin, San Antonio and Terrell. The Deaf and Dumb Institute and the Blind Asylum at Austin.
TEXAS SCHOOLS IN PIONEER DAYS
The following account of the early schools in Texas from the pen of Alice B. Ballard, of Austin, will be of interest :
Early days in Texas saw few educational advantages for the pioneer children. Although there were make-shift day schools conducted by the Jesuit fathers as early as 1800, constant trouble with the Mexican government and the neighboring Indians made these of short life. Nor, indeed, were the perilous days over when the first real schools were
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established. Certainly those men and women who left happy surround- ings to come to the aid of the education of the children of the would-be republic, the struggling young republic, and even the infant state deserve prominent mention in the Texas Hall of Fame.
Among those who were instrumental in establishing educational insti- tutions in the New West, as Texas was at first called, were T. J. Pilgrim, J. W. P. McKenzie, Rev. William Carey Crane, Martin Ruter, O. N. Hollingsworth, R. C. Burleson, Father J. M. Odin, Dr. Ashbel Smith and Daniel Baker and the noble women educators, Miss Trask "from Bos- ton." Miss L. A. McHenry and Miss Melinda Rankin.
One of the first of these, T. J. Pilgrim, who came to Texas from New York in 1828, was first engaged in teaching a day school at San Felipe de Austin. In January, 1829, Pilgrim opened the first Sabbath school in Texas. Up until his death in 1877 Pilgrim was an active worker in establishing both Sabbath schools and boarding schools in the Republic of Texas and in the State of Texas.
The first young ladies' boarding school established in Texas, was opened by Miss Trask "from Boston," on Jan. 31, 1834, at Independence. It was called the Trask seminary. The academy building was of round cedar and post oak logs and the room was eighteen feet square. Miss Trask, it is said, was very cultivated and highly educated and as fearless as any frontiersman in Texas. When it became necessary for her to do so, she mounted her horse, "swung a six-shooter on one horn of the saddle and unattended would ride to La Grange, Houston or Austin, a distance of from fifty to seventy-five miles, the whole route infested with Indians and other lawless characters. The academy continued under the super- vision of Miss Trask until 1838-39, when Prof. Henry F. Gillette, a member of the first faculty of Baylor University, bought out the school and established Independence Academy, which he successfully conducted until 1845, when it was transferred and became a part of Baylor University.
Another woman who was prominent in education work about this time was Miss L. A. McHenry, who, coming to Texas in 1833 with her brother and sister, Rev. and Mrs. J. W. Kenney, established a school at Mountville on the Brazos River in 1835. Here she taught in one room at the home of Mr. David Ayres, another pioneer. While she was con- ducting classes at this school, news came that the "Alamo had fallen." For days she with her little band of children and several women camped out in hiding from the Mexicans without a man to defend them.
In 1836 Miss McHenry was one of the most enthusiastic workers in bringing missionaries to Texas. The next year she reopened her school, this time only for girls. It is interesting to know that one afternoon of each week was devoted to embroidery and fancy work of all kinds. In April of 1838, however, her health failed and she was forced to give up her school. She received a legacy in 1840 that made her independent for life, and she traveled extensively in the interest of bringing Methodist missionaries to Texas. Her biographers say she had a very happy dis- position, and that "even the symmetry of a tree gave her pleasure." She died in 1864, just when new hopes were aroused by the close of the wa' between states.
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Martin Ruter, who was sent to Texas as superintendent of the Texas Mission in the latter part of 1837, also deserves a place of mention among the early educators. Although he did not really teach, he enterprised an institution of learning which later bore his name. He went so far as to draw up several articles of a charter to be presented to the next gov- ernor, styling the contemplated school of Bastrop University. It is said that a number of subscriptions for the erection of the proposed school had been secured. Right in the midst of his plans, however, he took pneumonia and died in May, 1838. On January 25, 1840, Rutersville College was chartered. It was erected at Rutersville by the Methodists in Texas and the United States, near the location of Ruter's proposed school, and the town derived its name from the great educator.
John W. P. Mckenzie offers probably the most interesting study of early educators. Much has been written about him and his work in Texas. He was a native of North Carolina and came to Texas as an itinerant minister in 1836. Soon afterward he was forced to give up his pastoral work. Moving to a small place about four miles from Clarksville he began teaching school in a log cabin with sixteen pupils. This was the beginning of what later was conceded to be the next pros- perous school west of the Mississippi River prior to the war between states. Soon it evolved into a boarding school and the log cabin gave way to a two-story double-log house with a shed room and a row of small cottages. In the early fifties these rather unpretentious buildings were gradually supplanted by four large, three-story buildings, one for the girls' dormitory, two for the boys' dormitory and the other for chapel and recitation. The school took care of as many as three hundred stu- dents from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indian Territory and Missouri. Nine professors were employed. Although no financial aid was received with the exception of tuition. Mckenzie made the school pay for itself. It is said, also that no boy or girl, however poor, was ever turned away from the institution.
The discipline of the school seems unusual. Students were required to get up by candle light at 4 o'clock in the morning to attend chapel. Mckenzie would come out on the coldest of mornings in his shirt sleeves and slippers for his so-called "morning air bath." It is said that his purpose was two-fold: That he might make stoics of the students and also as an excuse for the lack of fire. Failure to attend chapel had the punishment of being forced to miss breakfast.
Environment of the school was kept free from contaminating influ- ences, or what were then thought contaminating influences. The Bible was part of the course of study and whisky, cards and oaths were barred. Mckenzie is said to have led an exemplary life for his students, and kept school entirely under his control even if he did often have to resort to the "birch." He engaged in their sports and required those engaged in a fight to "kiss and make up." He later became president of a Methodist college at Waxahachie, for a few months. When the popula- tion migrated to the north, for the most part, the Mckenzie Male and Female College, as his school was called, began to decline for the want of large attendance. It was later merged into Southwestern University.
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The beloved teacher, for he is said to have been loved and reverenced by all of his students, died at his old home at the age of 76.
The name of Rufus C. Burleson is more or less familiar because of the part he played in the promotion of Baylor University. Dr. Burleson was born in North Alabama in 1823. In 1845 he consecrated his life to Texas, having been ordained as a Baptist minister a few years before. He preached his first sermon at Houston and won fame as an evangelist in that part of Texas. When Dr. H. L. Graves resigned from the presi- dency of Baylor University in 1851, Burleson was elected to succeed him. Although the university had been established at Independence some five years before, it was reported to be "dead" when Burleson entered upon his duties.
Among the first things the new president did was to issue a catalogue of the university, which was sent all over Texas and into other states. He also made it a point to impress upon the trustees that they had ahead of them a stupendous task of building up a first-class university. A financial agent, also, was appointed to solicit subscriptions for the build- ing up of the institution.
Mrs. Burleson, who was Miss Georgia Jenkins, was a helpmeet. She had attended college and was qualified to help her husband solve some of his most difficult problems.
When Dr. Burleson resigned as president of Baylor University in 1861, that institution, which was hardly known in 1851, was catalogued by the London Times as among the leading institutions of learning in the United States. Every facility for a complete education was offered and a college code had been adopted as well as rules of admission and the course of study.
In 1868 Dr. Burleson was made president of the Waco University. another Baptist institution. This school was combined with a part of the old Baylor University which was moved to Waco in 1886 and Bur- leson was made president. Another portion of the old Baylor University was moved to Belton and became known as the Baylor Female College. Dr. Burleson was made president emeritus of Baylor University in 1897. in which capacity he served until his death in 1901.
Another school which was established shortly after Baylor Univer- sity is St. Mary's College of San Antonio. Father J. M. Odin, a Catholic missionary from France, conceived the idea of establishing the institu- tion and went back to France to obtain means for building and promoting the school. On his return a room in the second story of a livery stable on the west side of Alamo Plaza was rented, and here it was that the school was first conducted. Father Odin was recalled to New Orleans in a few years and died at his old home in France in 1870. The work of St. Mary's College was taken up by his successor and the school sur- vived both the war between states and the cholera epidemic of 1866. Additions were frequently made and by 1875 the college had a high rank.
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