Lipscomb County Cemeteries Page: 187
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Higgins Cemetery
Prepared by Joanne Watson, June 2006
The town of Higgins is located near the Texas- Oklahoma border, and came into
being because of the railroad. After deciding to expand from Wichita, Kansas, to the
Texas panhandle, the Santa Fe railroad made three preliminary surveys, each one
proposing a different location to cross the Texas-Oklahoma border.
Two men from Harper, Kansas, decided to file on land at the location near Long
Creek, presuming that one of them would choose the section the arriving railroad would
use and would share their profits with the other. The two, E.C. Gray and his brother-inlaw
George Patton, accompanied by Jim Patton, left Kansas with a wagon and a saddle
horse in April of 1886.
All three filed on land and then went back to Kansas. They returned in July to
build dwellings. Jim Patton built a dugout on his claim, and Gray and George Patton
built log cabins on theirs.
October 8, 1886, Gray and his wife Addie and their nine-month-old daughter
Bessie arrived at what would become Higgins, Texas. It would be three months before
Mrs. Gray would see another woman. There was not a town with 150 miles. The and he
daughter spent their first night in the wagon while the men slept in the cabin because they
thought she would be more comfortable there. They didn't get much sleep though
because the coyotes and wolves kept them awake.2
The Santa Fe crossed the Gray's section, and by August of 1887, the town of
Higgins had been plotted and surveyed. The first train had come into Higgins in July of
the same year.3
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Kraft, LaVaun. Lipscomb County Cemeteries, book, April 2006; Lipscomb, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth36168/m1/187/?q=waller+county: accessed June 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Wolf Creek Heritage Museum.