DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Somewhere out on the Castro County flats, before there was much of anything out here at all, a family showed up. The year was 1884.
The James W. Carter family, and they didn't come empty-handed. They brought their cattle with them, branded with the 7-Up, and they claimed this land as their own.
First permanent settlers in Castro County. First. That means everything that came after, every neighbor, every town, every county government, all of it followed in their tracks.
Now, you'd think the first family to put down roots in a place like this would arrive with some grand homestead waiting for them. They did not. A tent and a dugout.
That was home. That was it, out here on the Texas Panhandle plain, until they got a proper house constructed, about a hundred yards to the west of where that marker stands. Life was not soft, but they were staying.
And then in 1886, a daughter was born. They named her Lizzie. And according to the record, Lizzie Carter was the first white child born to a permanent settler in the entire area.
Born into a tent-and-dugout world, into a county that didn't even have a government yet. That part came later. James Carter, born in 1845, turned out to be more than a rancher.
When the time came to organize Castro County's government in 1891, he was instrumental in making it happen, and he went on to serve on the very first commissioners court. The man helped build the county from the ground up, same as he'd built everything else out here. James Carter died in 1916.
His wife Ellen, born in 1855, outlasted him by a considerable stretch, living all the way to 1942. The two of them, at some point after the ranching years, opened a hotel together in Dimmitt. From a dugout to a hotel.
That's the arc of a life worth remembering. The supplemental plaque adds one more quiet detail: J. W.
Carter owned land right at this site, and his home, that house they finally built after the tent and the dugout, sat a half mile southwest of here. The 7-Up brand, the first county commissioners, the first child born to settlers in Castro County. The Carters weren't just passing through.
They were the beginning.
What the marker says
The first permanent settlers in Castro County, the James W. Carter family moved to this area in 1884. A tent and dugout served as home until a house was constructed (100 yards W.). Their cattle, which they brought with them, were marked with the 7-Up brand. Their daughter Lizzie (b. 1886) was the first white child born to a permanent settler in the area. James Carter (1845-1916) was instrumental in the organization of the Castro County government in 1891 and served on the first commissioners court. Carter and his wife Ellen (1855-1942) later opened a hotel in Dimmitt. (1981) SUPPLEMENTAL PLAQUE: J. W. Carter owned land at this site. His home was located 1/2 mile southwest of here.