DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the early settlers of Andrews County. Now, they call this stretch of West Texas one of the last frontiers in the state — and that ain't just poetic talk. Anglo settlement here ran a full sixty years behind the rest of Texas.
Sixty years. While folks elsewhere were puttin' down roots and buildin' towns, Andrews County sat out there waitin', held back by two hard facts: Indians and a scarcity of water that would make a man question his life choices. It wasn't until 1886 that a man named O.
B. Holt became the first to file for county land. First one.
Out of all the wide open nothing, he stepped up and said, this is mine. He was followed by the Cowden brothers and a man by the name of Peter Von Holebeke — early settlers who looked at this dry, unforgiving country and decided to stay anyway. By the turn of the century, the year 1900, you want to know how many people were living in all of Andrews County?
Eighty-seven. The whole county. Eighty-seven souls scattered across land that didn't want them there.
And the county itself wasn't even officially organized until 1910. What changed things — slowly, stubbornly — was the windmill pump and the drift fence. With those two tools, ranching started to become feasible.
Started to. Because the land still had a sense of humor about the whole arrangement. The marker tells us the soil was so dry that one day, a grazing cow crashed straight through a dugout roof and landed in a bed.
Just fell right on through. That's not a metaphor. That's Andrews County welcoming you.
But here's where the story turns. Those pioneers — the ones who filed claims and strung fences and pumped water out of stubborn earth — they held on. And in 1930, the discovery of oil rewarded every last bit of that tenacity.
Wealth came to a place that had spent decades daring people to leave. Sixty years behind the rest of Texas, eighty-seven people in 1900, and a cow falling through someone's roof. Andrews County did things on its own timeline — and when it finally paid off, it paid off in oil.
What the marker says
One of last frontiers of Texas. Anglo settlement here lagged 60 years behind rest of state due to Indians and scarcity of water. In 1886 O. B. Holt became first man to file for county land. First settlers included the Cowden brothers and Peter Von Holebeke. In 1900 county had 87 people; it was finally organized in 1910. With windmill pumps and drift fences, ranching became feasible, although soil was so dry that a grazing cow crashed through a dugout roof into a bed one day. In 1930 the discovery of oil brought wealth and rewarded the tenacity of first pioneers. (1970)