Booker

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here on the Texas Panhandle, a town doesn't just appear. Sometimes it gets built, moved, and born all in the same few years, and Booker, up in Lipscomb County, is exactly that kind of story.

It starts in 1917, when a Santa Fe Railway official by the name of Thomas C. Spearman sat down and platted the place. Drew the lines, laid out the lots, gave it a shape on paper.

The town was named for B. F. Booker, a railroad locating engineer, the man whose job it was to find the right path through the land.

Now, a platted town is one thing. A living town is another. And here's where the story gets a little wild.

Six miles to the north, just across the line in Oklahoma, there was a town called La Kemp. Whole town. And in 1919, La Kemp picked itself up and moved down to Booker.

People, ambitions, whatever a town carries with it. They came south. Then, on the Fourth of July, 1919, the first train rolled in.

Independence Day. You can't help but notice the timing. That date, July 4th, 1919, is what the marker calls the official birthdate of Booker.

Born on a holiday, built from another town's bones, named for the engineer who found the way. The economy took root in farming and cattle, the way most Panhandle towns did, working the land and running the herds. And then, in 1956, something shifted under the ground.

Oil and gas production joined the picture, adding a whole new chapter to what Booker could be. Three economies, one town, one Fourth of July. That first train didn't just arrive.

It announced something.

What the marker says

Platted 1917 by Thomas C. Spearman, Santa Fe Railway official. Named for railroad locating engineer, B. F. Booker. Town of La Kemp, Oklahoma (6 miles north) moved here 1919. First train arrived July 4, 1919, official birthdate of Booker. Economy based on farming, cattle and (since 1956) oil and gas production. (1969)