DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passing it along. West of Hale Center — nine miles east of where you're standing right now — there stretched a wide open piece of the Texas Panhandle that early settlers called the Center Plains community. And like most places out here, it started with somebody stubborn enough to stake a claim on land that didn't ask to be tamed.
That somebody was William S. Bolivar, who began homesteading this very area in 1890. He even donated the property for the two things any growing community needs before it needs much else — a cemetery and a schoolhouse.
By 1902, the settlement had a post office, which is the frontier's way of saying it was real. That first post office listed the place not as Center Plains, but as Copenhagen — and it opened right in the home of T. H.
Miller, who served as postmaster. A community with a name, a school, a post office, and a cemetery. That's not nothing.
But here's where the story takes that particular Texas turn where hope and geography get into an argument. Word came that the Panhandle Short Line Railroad was laying track from Vega down to Lubbock. A railroad meant everything — commerce, growth, permanence.
Center Plains sat up a little straighter. Then 1907 arrived, and the rail line bypassed the community entirely. Just... went around it.
And when a railroad passes you by out here, you don't wait to see what happens next. The post office packed up and the school followed, both moving a mile west to a newly platted town called Norfleet. Now, Norfleet had the promise of that railroad to recommend it.
And then — 1910 — the plans for the rail line were abandoned altogether. The town that had lured away Center Plains' post office and school failed. Just failed.
And the school came back. So the schoolhouse returned to Center Plains, and it got back to being what it had always quietly been — more than just a place for lessons. On Sundays, people of all faiths worshiped inside those same walls.
It was a schoolhouse on weekdays and a sanctuary on the weekend, the kind of building that carried a whole community on its shoulders. In 1925, when plans came up to consolidate with other area schools, Center Plains said no. Rejected it.
But by 1937, officials divided the district anyway and transferred the students — some to Hale Center, some to Cotton Center. And that was that. Center Plains was once, as the marker puts it, the nucleus of a large rural community.
The post office is gone. The school is gone. Norfleet is gone.
But out here, one mile east of where that railroad never came, the cemetery remains. It usually does. It's the part of a place that doesn't move, doesn't follow a rail line, doesn't get transferred or consolidated or abandoned.
It just stays, keeping the memory of the people who were stubborn enough to settle here in the first place.
What the marker says
Early settlers to Hale County referred to the territory west of Hale Center (9 mi. E) as the Center Plains community. A cemetery and a schoolhouse, established to serve the vast area, were located at this site on property donated by William S. Bolivar who began homesteading the area in 1890. The first post office, listing the settlement as Copenhagen, opened in 1902 in the home of T. H. Miller, the postmaster. When construction of the proposed Panhandle Short Line Railroad from Vega to Lubbock bypassed the community in 1907, the post office and school were moved to the newly platted town of Norfleet (1 mi. W). The town failed by 1910 when plans for the rail line were abandoned, and the school was moved back to Center Plains. The schoolhouse also served as a community center and people of all faiths worshiped in the facility on Sundays. Plans to consolidate with other area schools were rejected in 1925, but officials divided the district in 1937 and transferred the students to Hale Center and Cotton Center schools. Center Plains was once the nucleus of a large rural community, but only the cemetery remains. 1980