Spearman

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it my way. Spearman, Texas. Hansford County.

A town that didn't just grow, it arrived with a purpose and a railroad behind it. Let's back up and let that unfold right. The town was founded in 1917, named for Thomas C.

Spearman, a vice-president and head of the Land Department of the Santa Fe Railway. Now there's a man who had a hand in where things went and how they got there. The Santa Fe line itself was completed to Spearman in 1920, and that made Spearman the first railroad shipping point in the entire county.

First. In the whole county. That's not a small thing out on the High Plains, where distance is your daily adversary and getting goods to market is the whole ballgame.

The town incorporated in 1921, so within just a handful of years it had a railroad, a name, and a government. Hansford County, for its part, had been created back in 1876, organized in 1889, and it had its county seat elsewhere. Then in 1929, the county looked around and decided Spearman was the place to be.

The seat relocated here. Two years later, in 1931, they built the courthouse to make it official in stone and mortar. Now, Spearman settled into the work that the land and the people required, agriculture, wheat storage, ranching, and the petroleum industry.

Four pillars holding up a community on the plains. And then the early 1960s rolled in with something to prove. Twenty-five new businesses in two years.

That is a town on the move. But maybe the detail that sticks with you, the one that makes a visitor slow down and look twice, is the streets. Paved with brick.

Not asphalt like everywhere else. Brick. The marker says it plain: those streets make the city distinctive.

And out here on the Texas Panhandle, where the wind and the horizon tend to humble everything in their path, a town that lays down brick and means to stay is a town worth remembering.

What the marker says

Founded 1917; incorporated 1921. Named for Thomas C. Spearman, a vice-president and head of the Land Department of the Santa Fe Railway. The Santa Fe line was completed to Spearman in 1920, making this the first railroad shipping point in the county. Hansford County, created 1876 and organized 1889, relocated its county seat here in 1929. The courthouse was built 1931. Center for agriculture, wheat storage, ranching, and petroleum industry. Early 1960s growth included 25 new businesses in two years. Streets paved with brick make city distinctive.