DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Mount Blanco Community, out in Crosby County. Now, every good story out here on the South Plains starts with the land itself, and this one's no different. There's a tall white mesa rising up out of the flatness — a landmark so impossible to miss that the U.S.
Cavalry used it to fix their bearings when they surveyed the Mackenzie Trail in 1871, scouting for Indians on the frontier. That mesa gave this whole community its name: Mount Blanco. Six years after those cavalry scouts came through, a frontiersman named Henry Clay Smith rode into the picture.
Born in 1836, Smith was the kind of man a young country seemed to manufacture on purpose — resourceful, stubborn, and not easily discouraged by the word 'impossible.' In 1877, he built a two-story stone house right out there near the mesa. Now, he didn't build it for himself, not at first anyway. He built it for two speculators: a man named Charles Tasker, out of Philadelphia, and a Lord Jamison, all the way from Ireland.
That house, rising up out of nothing in what would become the South Plains Region, was the first permanent homestead in the entire area. Smith also brought in cattle for Tasker. He was doing everything right.
The trouble was, Tasker wasn't. When Tasker failed in business, Smith's payment — all that labor, all those cattle, all that effort — amounted to one thing: the house itself. He accepted it as compensation.
And so, in the fall of 1877, Henry Clay Smith moved his family into that two-story stone house near the mesa. His nearest neighbor was fifty miles east. Let that settle in for a moment.
Fifty miles. But Smith didn't pull up the drawbridge and keep to himself. That house became a way-station for prospectors passing through, and Smith made a point of welcoming settlers, encouraging folks to put down roots.
One of those settlers was a man named Paris Cox, the Quaker founder of a town called Estacado, twenty-two miles to the west. The land was filling in, one stubborn soul at a time. By September of 1879, Mount Blanco had itself a post office.
And the postmaster? That was Mrs. Smith — Elizabeth Boyle, born in 1848 — running things out here at the edge of the known world.
In 1886, Henry Clay Smith stepped up again, this time leading the effort to organize Crosby County itself. The region was prospering. By 1890, there was a school.
After 1900, farming largely replaced ranching across the area. But time has a way of quietly taking things back. The post office closed in 1916.
The school consolidated with Crosbyton in 1949. Then, in 1952, Smith's stone house — that two-story monument to frontier grit, the first permanent homestead of the South Plains Region — burned. Henry Clay Smith had passed in 1912, Elizabeth Boyle Smith in 1925, so neither saw it go.
The village of Mount Blanco, four miles to the northeast, lost its last store around 1956. The church followed in 1965. By 1975, when this marker was set down, all that remained as public buildings in Mount Blanco were a cotton gin and a clubhouse.
A tall white mesa, a two-story stone house, and a community that rose up out of fifty miles of silence — and what the years leave behind is sometimes just enough to remind you it was all very real.
What the marker says
Named for tall white mesa that was a landmark on Mackenzie Trail, surveyed in 1871 by U.S. Cavalry scouting for Indians on the frontier. Near the mesa in 1877, frontiersman Henry Clay Smith (1836-1912) built a two-story stone house for speculators Charles Tasker of Philadelphia and Lord Jamison of Ireland. This was the first permanent homestead in South Plains Region. Smith also brought in cattle for Tasker, and had to accept house as his compensation when Tasker failed in business. In the fall of 1877, Smith moved his family here; nearest neighbor was 50 miles east. The home became a way-station for prospectors, and Smith encouraged many settlers such as Paris Cox, the Quaker founder of Estacado (22 miles West). Mount Blanco Post Office opened in September 1879, with Mrs. Smith (Elizabeth Boyle, 1848-1925) as postmaster. In 1886, Smith led in organizing Crosby County. This area prospered, and by 1890 had a school. Farming largely replaced ranching after 1900. Post office closed in 1916. School consolidated with Crosbyton in 1949. Smith's stone house (1 mile North) burned in 1952. Village of Mount Blanco (4 miles northeast) lost its last store about 1956, its church in 1965. Only a cotton gin and clubhouse now (1975) remain as public buildings in Mount Blanco. (1975)