DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the Texas Historical Commission put down on the marker for the Girl Scout Little House up in Hutchinson County. Now settle in, because this one's got oil money, wartime grit, and more than a hundred mothers and daughters who showed up before there was even a building to show up to. That last part right there — that's the whole story, really.
But let's back up. It starts, as so many good Texas stories do, with an oil boom. Borger's prewar boom, to be specific.
Early 1941, a man named Hudson Davis packs up his family, leaves Amarillo behind, and opens a car dealership in Borger. Now Hudson was the kind of fellow who couldn't join just one thing — Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, you name it, he was in it. His wife Ruby, though — Ruby had a different kind of ambition.
She and her daughter had been deep in Girl Scouts back in Amarillo, and Ruby wasn't about to let that go just because she'd moved to a new town. So she and Margaret Elliot, principal of the Weatherly School, called an organizational meeting. One organizational meeting.
And more than one hundred girls and their mothers walked through the door. One hundred. Before there was a troop, before there was a building, before there was anything but Ruby Davis and an idea.
Ruby became president of the Borger Girl Scout Council, and now they needed a place to actually be. Here's where fate, as it tends to do in wartime, threw a wrench in things. World War II building restrictions and supply shortages ground the dream of a permanent community center to a halt.
Years passed. Girls kept meeting wherever they could. Then July 1945 rolls around, and Hudson Davis — the car dealer, the joiner, the man who moved his family from Amarillo — becomes president of the Lions Club.
And he points the whole organization at one project: build that headquarters for the Girl Scouts. What happened next was the kind of thing you don't see engineered so much as you see it bloom. Fritz Thompson donated the land, right there near the community hospital.
Borger school superintendent Curtis Cryer went and got the plans from an Amarillo architect named Macon O. Carder. And then Borger just — built it.
Every dollar, every nail, every hour of labor: donated. The whole community showed up the way those hundred mothers had shown up to that first meeting. What they raised out of that effort is a U-shaped building with an irregular course rock finish, a low-pitch roof with cross gables and exposed rafter tails.
And that stone veneer — that's not just any rock. That's dolostone from the Alibates formation, pulled from the land itself. The Texas Historical Commission recorded it as a landmark in 2008, and it still stands as a meeting place for the Girl Scouts and the Lions Club both.
So the next time somebody tells you one person can't change a town, you remind them about Ruby Davis, who moved to Borger in 1941, called one meeting, and by the time the war was over, her community had built something out of donated stone that's still standing today.
What the marker says
This community landmark has its origins in Borger's prewar oil boom. In early 1941, Hudson Davis opened a car dealership here, moving his family from Amarillo. Hudson and his wife Ruby immediately became involved in civic activities, with Hudson joining the Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce and other groups. Ruby and her daughter had been active in Girl Scouts in Amarillo, and so Ruby helped start a Girl Scout troop in Borger. She She and Margaret Elliot, principal of the Weatherly School, called an organizational meeting, and more than one hundred girls and their mothers attended. Ruby became president of the Borger Girl Scout Council. World War II building restrictions and supply shortages delayed construction of a community center intended as a permanent meeting place for the Girl Scouts. In July 1945 Hudson Davis became president of the Lions Club, and directed the organization to sponsor construction of a headquarters building for the local scout troop. Fritz Thompson donated land near the community hospital, and Borger school superintendent Curtis Cryer obtained plans from Amarillo architect Macon O. Carder for the new building. Construction of the Girl Scout Little House became a community-wide effort, with all material, money and labor being donated. The U-shaped building features an irregular course rock finish, low-pitch roof with cross gables and exposed rafter tails. The stone veneer of the building is dolostone from the Alibates formation. Since its completion, the building has been the site of many community activities as well as a meeting place for the Girl Scouts and Lions Club. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2008