Sometime in 1889 or
1890, as smaller ranches and farmlands were being
purchased, Ernest Theodore O'Neil, his brother-in-law
John Simon McConnell, and John W. Swearingen, together
had purchased the land upon which the town currently
sits, for $5.00 per acre. Subsequently, O'Neil, who
originally owned a fourth of the section of the township,
purchased the interests of McConnell and Swearingen, and
retained sole ownership of the land. The 1890 census
showed 357 inhabitants across the county, with 89 ranches
and farms and 335 acres (1.36 km2) of land in
cultivation. In August 1890, a petition was circulated to
organize the county, choose a county seat, and elect
county officers. Two potential townships were proposed:
Wellington and Pearl. The proposed town of Wellington was
located on the land owned by Ernest T. O'Neil who was
promoting this location, and had been given its proposed
name by his wife, Matilda Anna Elisabeth
"Lizzie" O'Neil, who greatly admired the Duke
of Wellington, hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The
alternate and proposed town of Pearl was located several
miles north of Wellington.
In September 1890, the vote was held and Wellington was
selected for the seat of the newly organized county of
Collingsworth. In 1891 the new city, laid out by Ernest
T. O'Neil, was surveyed and platted, and the first postal
service and postmaster, Carrie M. Barton, was established
on January 9, 1891. Construction of a courthouse began in
1893, and the contractor, J. A. White, built the
courthouse of locally made bricks. With the extra
materials left over from the courthouse, J. A. White
erected a mercantile store for Ernest T. O'Neil. This
became the first mercantile store and commercial building
in Wellington, prior to the opening of a two-story hotel
by O'Neil. Later O'Neil organized the first bank, was
active in all phases of the county's growth and
development, and served as postmaster from August 22,
1895 to December 11, 1897.
Early in the early 20th century, Wellington was connected
with Wichita Falls through the Wichita Falls and
Wellington Railroad, one of the properties of the
industrialist Joseph A. Kemp of Wichita Falls. In 1914,
this route was leased by the since defunct
MissouriKansasTexas Railroad.[5]
The first time Bonnie and Clyde (Bonnie Park and Clyde
Barrow) made The New York Times newspaper was their
incident at the Prichard farm. Bonnie is referenced as a
"woman companion", and the perpetrators are
Clyde Barrow and his brother whose name is given as Icy.
With the location as "Wellington, Texas", the
story tells of their wrecking their car, terrorizing a
family and shooting the daughter-in-law (but actually
their daughter), kidnapping two law enforcement officers
and taking them in their car near Erick, Oklahoma, where
the two kidnapped men were tied to a tree with barbed
wire cut from a fence. They freed themselves and alerted
local law enforcement, but the trail had gone cold.
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