Services for Lloyd A. Wicks, 82, pioneer Crosby County attorney, were held at 2 p.m. Thursday, April 11, in the First Methodist Church with the Rev. H.B. Coggin, pastor, officiating. Burial was in the Ralls Cemetery directed by Carter Funeral Home.Wicks died at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday in Methodist Hospital in Lubbock, where he was taken early Monday as an emergency patient.
Active in civic affairs until the time of his death, Wicks was the last surviving charter member of the Crosby Masonic Lodge No. 1020, serving as the first worshipful master in 1910, a position he held four times in the past 50 years. A Mason for 60 years, he had been district deputy grand master of the 193rd District in 1945.
Also a charter member of the Ralls Rotary Club, he was district governor of Rotary International in 1951-52.
He held the Silver Beaver Award for Adult Leadership for his work with the Boy Scouts.
Born May 24, 1885, in Gaylord, Mich., Wicks attended the University of Michigan and the Chicago Law Institute, working for U.S. Senator Church of the law firm of Barker, Church and Sheppard in Chicago prior to coming to Crosby County in 1907.
Because of ill health and the doctor's advice that he seek a high and dry climate, Wicks came to Crosby County to handle affairs of the Coonley Brothers, clients of Sen. Church.
The Coonley brothers and Julian Bassett formed the C.B. Livestock Co. to drive up ranchland, including the old Two Buckle Ranch, into farms for developing the area. Wicks drew up all the abstracts which are still used today, selling land as a sideline.
When the Crosbyton and South Plains Railroad, built in 1910 by the C.B. Livestock Co. to connect with Lubbock and thence to Chicago to bring settlers west, into litigation with Ralls over route of the line, Wicks was one of those most involved. It was a choice plumb of a case for a young lawyer who had just passed the state bar exam to practice law in Texas.
The company, which brought settlers to the area free, by-passed the town of Ralls, establishing Cedric a few miles away. Among other excitement during the court fight was the fencing off of the tracks, making it necessary for each train to stop and take down the fence before proceeding to Crosbyton.
In 1915 the Santa Fe Railway Co. purchased the short line and John Ralls purchased the section on which Cedric was located. This ended one of the area's most colorful lawsuits.
Another colorful incident he witnessed involved "Old Emma," the county seat when Wicks got off the mail hack there. In an exciting election, with both Ralls and Crosbyton fighting for Emma's honor, Crosbyton "stole" the courthouse, reducing Emma to a ghosttown. Her houses were soon moved to the two other towns.
Folks in Crosby County who counted Wicks as a wonderful man full of pioneering spirit still recall the sight he made getting off the Emma mail hack. Dressed in colorful dudish apparel complete with derby hat, he was "a sight to behold" and they say that even the horses ran away at sight of him. He immediately bought Western duds and grew to fit them in everyone's estimation.
He married Katherine Gunn of Dickens in Crosbyton in 1909. She died in 1958.
He was a member of the Ralls Methodist Church, serving as Sunday School superintendent for many years. At one time he was a state director for the State Bar of Texas.
Survivors include three sons,Lloyd Jr. of Ralls, S.E. of Phoenix, Ariz., and W.W. of Dallas; four grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
Leading the funeral procession were six area Masons mounted on horseback and a riderless horse.
Ralls Banner, 1968
Record provided by Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum
transcribed by Linda Fox Hughes
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Crosby County TXGenWeb Project
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