Lyford

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it to you straight. Before there was a town called Lyford, before there was even a road worth mentioning out here in Willacy County, this stretch of South Texas land was part of something much bigger — the King Ranch. The locals had a name for this particular piece of it: Como se Llama.

Roll that around on your tongue a minute. Como se Llama. Then the railroad came, and everything changed.

It has a way of doing that. In 1907, executives of the Rock Island Railroad set about building a town right here. They named it Lyford, after a man named William H.

Lyford — an attorney out of Illinois, about as far from the South Texas brush country as you can get. But his name stuck to this place, and here we are. Now, those first settlers — they came by train, rolling in from the Midwest with their hopes packed alongside their trunks.

And when they stepped off? No houses waiting for them. No hotels, no storefronts.

They lived in tents. Just canvas between them and whatever the weather had in mind. Out here in South Texas, that is not a small thing.

Slowly, Lyford took shape. An artesian well came up and supplied the water. A building they called Pioneer Hall went up and pulled double duty — housing worship services on one end of the week and school classes on the other.

That one building doing the work of a whole civilization. Eventually, the Lyford Hotel rose to become the focal point of town life, the place where the community gathered and business got done. But here's where the story gets its teeth.

Between 1913 and 1915, border bandit raids swept through this part of Texas. And Lyford was right in the middle of it. Soldiers and Texas Rangers were called in to protect the town — standing watch over a place that, just a few years before, had been nothing but tents and an artesian well and the quiet hum of prairie grass.

From a King Ranch pasture with a Spanish name, to a tent city, to a town defended by Rangers — Lyford didn't come easy. But then, the places worth keeping never do.

What the marker says

Before the arrival of the railroad, this area was a part of the King Ranch known as "Como se LLama". Lyford was developed in 1907 by executives of the Rock Island Railroad and named for attorney William H. Lyford of Illinois. Settlers came by train from the midwest and lived in tents until permanent homes could be built. An artesian well supplied water, and "Pioneer Hall" housed worship services and school classes. Later the Lyford Hotel became a focal point for the town. Soldiers and Texas Rangers protected Lyford during the border bandit raids of 1913-15. (1985)