The Land and Its People, 1876-1981: Deaf Smith County, Texas Page: 48
652 p.: ill., map, ports. ; 29 cm.View a full description of this book.
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Hotel Jim Hill, then the hotel included blacks
on its staff, that any number made homes in
Hereford where they have become an integral
part of the community.
A few came with early settlers from the
east but they usually did not stay. One who
did was Nettie Thornton, an employee of the
J.W. Hyde family who lived just southwest of
Hereford. Many residents remember her. She
had once been a slave and had been with the
Hyde family many years. She died November
19, 1941 at the age of almost 93, and is buried
in West Park Cemetery.
Through the 1930's Hereford residents did
not permit blacks to live in the city, and those
who stopped in passing were warned that they
could not spend the night. Even the black
porters on Santa Fe trains were not permitted
to get off the trains which stopped at the
station here. Marlin Gililland . recalls that
about 1930 some who camped in the City
Park were chased away by a group which
threatened them with dynamite.
Segregated schools were the rule, and in
1953 the Hereford School District opened a
school for the few black children then living
here. The small building was located at the
Main Street crossing on Tierra Blanca Creek,
where the parking lot of the Municipal Golf
Course pro shop is now. This one-teacher
school was closed and its pupils went to the
city's other schools in 1963. Now black students
are active in school organizations, many
are star athletes who have gone on to win
wider recognition in college athletics. At the
same time their elders have won esteem in the
business and community life of the county
and many own homes or businesses. Blacks
organized their own churches when they first
began settling in the county and there are now
two sizeable black congregations.
Some of those who came around 1950 and
have lived here since are Lorene and Simmie
Peters, the H.B. Whittens, Louise and
McKinley Hall and Jim Scott; Rev. C.W.
Allen and Rev. L.V. Mays are longtime
pastors; Robert Mercer is a bank loan officer,
to name only a few who are well known
residents. School athletes who have contributed
largely to Hereford High School's list of
winners in recent years include members of
the Mays, High and Mercer families.
ROADS
Not until after World War II did motorists
in Deaf Smith County finally get out of the
mud and dust, with both major highways and
a network of farm-to-market roads paved.
Only US 60, formerly Texas Highway 33,
had an all-weather surface on its route
through the county before 1940.
A campaign carried on for years bore fruit
when paving was finished on Texas Highway
51, now US 385, which had been paved only
through Hereford. The first stretch, south
from the Oldham County line in 1944,
extended pavement that had been laid from
Vega to the line. Two years later it was
brought farther south to connect with the
Hereford pavement. In 1949 it was completed
from Hereford south to the Castro County
line.Farm-to-market surfacing began on Harrison
Highway in 1950, west to the New Mexico
border. More F-M roads were paved soon
afterward and at present the county has 212.1miles, the Texas Department of Highways
and Transportation reports. Deaf Smith
County Commissioners Court listed 1,072
miles of roads maintained by the county at the
beginning of 1982.
All-weather surface on farm roads made
school buses practical and speeded the consolidation
of rural schools with the larger school
units. More than just a convenience for private
automobiles, hard-surfaced roads make
possible a trucking industry that moves most
of the area's agricultural products, also the
operation of five motor freight lines into
Hereford and bus service by New Mexico
Transportation.
RAILROADS
Drastic changes in railroad services
occurred after World War II, with the growing
importance of the trucking business, general
use of private automobiles for passenger
traffic due to better highways, and better air
service.
In wartime the railroads were used to
capacity for troop movements and travel over
the nation for military personnel and their
dependents, also for new demands on freight
shipments. At the war's end came improvements
in railroad equipment
like powerpacked
diesel locomotives that replaced the
familiar steam engines, mechanical refrigerator
cars, tri-level autoveyors stacked three
deep with newly-assembled automobiles,
30,000 gallon "jumbo" tank cars and piggyback
service, the transporting of trailers on
flat cars. Latest additions are new hoppers to
form trains hauling coal from mines in states
northwest of the Panhandle to power plants in
the area.
The Santa Fe at the start of 1982 had 22
employees who live and work in the offices, in
the yards and on the tracks at Hereford. A
switch engine is maintained 16 hours a day
for handling the rail business of Hereford's
industrial concerns. A "local" freight train
runs from Amarillo to Clovis on alternate
days of the week, reversing the route on odd
days. On the average, 25 to 30 trains pass
through Hereford each day.
Passenger service carrying travelers over
the Santa Fe mainline from Chicago and
points east to Los Angeles with luxury accommodations
also shoppers from Dawn to
Hereford was discontinued in 1971 in
keeping with a trend for railroads over the
nation.
P.H. Thurston came to Hereford as Santa
Fe agent in February, 1982, following J.C.
Beck and O.E. Durham, each here for less
than two years, and E.L. Farmer, who served
from 1974 until his death four years later.
G.T. Slaughter had previously held the job
from 1946 until he retired in 1974.
PHONE
Technological advances made drastic
changes in telephone service in the 1940's,
which also brought a boom in use of telephones
at Hereford with the press of communication
during World War II and industrial
growth in the county. Some of the new equipment
was pioneered here, as the Bell System's
building was greatly enlarged in 1957 and the
first direct distance dialing in the area began.Touchtone phones made their debut here in
May, 1966. It was difficult to increase
employees and facilities fast enough to keep
up with the demand for service, as vegetable
processing and marketing firms were making
more long-distance calls and the rush of new
residents called for more residential phones.
The number of employees increased to more
than 70 at the peak in the 1960's. Marie Sears
was chief operator until 1962, when she
retired with a record of 36 years' service.
Automation in the Bell System improved
services after that period, but it accounted for
a sharp drop in the number of employees as
operations were steadily centralized and
mechanization took over.
From the 446 telephones in 1940, there
were big increases to 1,538 in 1950; 3,515 in
1960; 5,281 by 1965 and a peak of 12,813 in
1980. A slight decline is shown by 1982, with
12,491 at the first of the year.
Improved rural phone service came in the
post-war years. Formation of West Texas
Rural Telephone Cooperative in May, 1950,
took "city telephones" to rural areas and
extended lines into far reaches of the county
which had never had telephones. Vernon
Inmon was the first manager here and held
that position about a quarter of a century
before retiring. With nine exchanges, West
Texas Rural Telephone Co-op in 1982 serves
about 2,500 customers with 1,700 miles of
line. -RESEARCH BY MARIE SEARS
TELEGRAPH
In the early 1940's the Western Union
Telegraph office in Hereford was a busy
place. Vegetable brokers kept the wires hot
with messages as they bought and sold, and
there was increased traffic due to the war
also. From the Santa Fe station, Western
Union had moved its office to the back of the
Harold Close Drug store. Peggy Valentine
was the first manager there, and when she
was transferred Charlotte Close took the
post. Mrs. Close enjoyed her duties during
those lively years, except for her sad task of
receiving and delivering messages announcing
that area men had been killed or wounded
in combat.
Seeking information for a history of Western
Union in Hereford, Cecil G. Braly was
unable to find records of all employees in this
period but writes, "Mrs. Gwynne (Ruth)
Owen was manager from the latter part of
1944 until 1946, when she married. Ruth was
a Memphis, Texas, high school graduate who
applied to Western Union for training. The
company sent her to school at Chillicothe,
Missouri. She was manager at Yukon,
Oklahoma before transferring to Hereford.
Records for 1946-1953 are not available, but
in 1954 Miss Pauline Young, who was manager
at Littlefield, transferred to Hereford.
Pauline and Loyd Bridges married in 1955. In
1958 she was transferred to Plainview.
"In June, 1958 Cecil G. Braly was transferred
from Childress. He began his career as
a Western Union manager in 1921 at Ada,
Oklahoma, and over the years worked in
several offices in Oklahoma and Arkansas
before transfer to the Panhandle in 1931. Hespent the last 40 years in Quanah, Plainview,
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Deaf Smith County Historical Society. The Land and Its People, 1876-1981: Deaf Smith County, Texas, book, 1982; Deaf Smith County, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth16010/m1/52/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Deaf Smith County Library.