DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker at Della Plain tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. A severe drought in the mid-1880s has a way of making a man reconsider his options. T.
J. Braidfoot was a Baylor County rancher, and when that drought came down hard, he didn't sit still — he went looking for better conditions for his cattle. What he found was this stretch of Floyd County, and in 1887, with backing from a Seymour man named J.
R. McLain, Braidfoot founded a settlement right here. He called it Della Plain.
Now that name carried some weight behind it — it honored Della, the daughter of J. S. McLain, and it nodded to the wide-open terrain rolling out in every direction.
Two other Seymour residents, I. R. Darnell and Dr.
L. T. Wilson, threw their support into the town's early development as well.
So you had ranching instinct, Seymour money, and wide-open plains all working together. For a moment, Della Plain looked like it might be something truly special. The dream, and it was a real dream, was that when Floyd County got formally organized, Della Plain would be named the county seat.
In the meantime, the town got busy. A school went up. A church followed.
There was a post office, stores, and — here's the detail that tells you a town means business — its own newspaper, the Della Plain Review. That's not a settlement anymore. That's a town with ambitions.
But ambition and water are two different things, and Della Plain was running short on the latter. An inadequate water supply put a ceiling on how high this place could grow. And then the nearby towns started arriving.
Lockney in 1889. Floydada in 1890. Competition has a way of changing the arithmetic of a young town's future.
And in 1890, the blow that decided everything: Floydada was named the seat of Floyd County. That was the dream, gone. Rapid decline set in after that, and it moved fast.
Four years later, the community cemetery was all that remained of Della Plain. From a town with a newspaper and a school and stores and a church — down to a cemetery in four years. That's not a slow fade.
That's a hard stop. Still, the marker doesn't leave it there, and neither will I. The people of Della Plain didn't disappear with their town.
They went on to lead in the later development of the county and the cities nearby. Their descendants still live in this area today. Della Plain lasted only a brief time, but it left its mark on this land — and apparently, so do the people who came from it.
What the marker says
A severe drought in the mid-1880s brought Baylor County rancher T. J. Braidfoot to this area in search of better conditions for his cattle. In 1887, with the support of J. R. McLain of Seymour, he founded the settlement of Della Plain at this site. Other early contributors to the town's development included Seymour residents I. R. Darnell and Dr. L. T. Wilson. Named for J. S. McLain's daughter Della and for the surrounding terrain, it was hoped the town would become the county seat when Floyd County was formally organized. Della Plain became an early agricultural center for the region and was soon the site of a school, church, post office, stores and a newspaper, the "Della Plain Review." Growth, however, was limited by an inadequate water supply and by the establishment of the nearby towns of Lockney (1889) and Floydada (1890). Rapid decline began after Floydada was named the seat of Floyd County in 1890. Four years later the community cemetery was all that remained of Della Plain. Despite its brief history, the pioneer town had a dramatic impact on the region. Its residents led in the later development of the county and nearby cities. Their descendants still live in the area. (1982, 1987)