Hansford County History
Source: The Handbook of Texas Online
HANSFORD COUNTY
Hansford County, on the northern edge of the Panhandle, is
bordered on the north by Oklahoma, on the west by Sherman County,
on the south by Hutchinson County, and on the east by Ochiltree
County. The approximate center of the county lies at 36°15'
north latitude and 101°20' west longitude.
Spearman, the county seat, is in the southeastern part of the
county, about ten miles from the county center and approximately
eighty miles northeast of Amarillo. The county, named for John M.
Hansford, comprises 907 square miles of level and rolling
prairies cut by the intermittent Frisco, Coldwater, Palo Duro,
and Horse creeks. The region's black, sandy, and loam soils
support abundant native grasses as well as wheat, corn, sorghum,
oats, and other small grains.
Hansford County, on the High Plains, ranges from 2,950 to 3,300
feet in altitude and receives an average annual rainfall of 22.16
inches; it has an average maximum temperature of 94° F in July
and an average minimum of 20° in January. The growing season
averages 186 days year.
An Apachean culture occupied the Panhandle-Plains area in
prehistoric times; the modern Apaches emerged subsequently but
were pushed out of the region about 1700 by the Comanches, who
dominated the area until the mid-1870s. During the early 1870s
buffalo hunters traversed the area from the east, slaughtering
the great southern herd as they went.
In 1873 James H. Cator and his brother Robert, both buffalo
hunters from England, established an outpost in what became
Hansford County. They named this semipermanent camp Zulu, and it
soon became known as Zulu Stockade. Over the next four years the
buffalo were wiped out. In the Red River War of 1874 the
Comanches were conquered; they were removed to Indian Territory
in 1875 and 1876.
The two Cator brothers and their sister Clara, together with some
other hunters, remained to take up ranching and were soon joined
by others seeking new ranges for beef cattle. In 1876 the Texas
legislature marked off Hansford County from land previously
assigned to Young and Bexar districts; the new county was
administered by authorities in Wheeler County.
By 1880 the United States census counted eighteen people living
in the county. That same year the county's first town, Farwell,
was established near the center of the county; in 1887 Hansford,
a stage stop on the old Tascosa-Dodge City Trail, was established
near Farwell on Palo Duro Creek. In 1889, when the county was
politically organized, Hansford outpolled Farwell in a
county-seat election.
Though ranching early became the mainstay of the county's
economy, it did not develop as quickly or on as large a scale as
in other counties of the western and southern Panhandle. As late
as 1890 only twenty-three ranches were in operation in the
county; the agricultural census reported 4,704 cattle that year.
By 1900 the number of ranches had dropped to twenty-two, with
15,715 cattle and nineteen sheep reported. No crops were
mentioned in the census. Much of the county was at one time owned
by the huge Turkey Track Ranch, while the rest was occupied by
more modest ranching operations that cultivated farm crops in the
creekbottoms. The census counted 133 residents in 1890 and 167 in
1900. Farwell and Hansford were still the only towns in Hansford
County at the beginning of the twentieth century.
After 1900 farmers began to move in. Land speculation and the
foundation of several local land companies after 1900 led to the
arrival of both Anglo-American and immigrant farmers. In 1909,
for example, the Anders L. Mordt Land Company began to bring in
Norwegians from the upper Midwest.
For the next two decades these farmers settled the northern part
of the county, centering around a rural community they called
Oslo. A Lutheran church, a school, and the Norwegian-language
Oslo Posten (printed in Guymon, Oklahoma) formed the nucleus of
the community. By 1910 Hansford County had 152 farms and ranches
and the population had increased to 935. The agricultural census
reported 11,239 cattle and more than 6,300 sheep in the county
that year.
Crop farming was slowly being established. Wheat was planted on
about 3,900 acres and sorghum on 3,942 acres. By 1920, 221 farms
and ranches had been established in the county, and almost 32,500
acres was devoted to wheat culture. This agricultural expansion
was reflected in population growth: by 1920, 1,354 people were
living in the county.
The arrival of farmers led to major changes in the economy and
structure of the county. In 1920 the North Texas and Santa Fe
Railway built a line from Shattuck, Oklahoma, to its new townsite
of Spearman in southeastern Hansford County, and more and more
farmers arrived to buy promising lands. Spearman soon became the
leading town in the county; it absorbed both Farwell and Hansford
by the mid-1920s, and in 1929 it became the county seat. As the
agricultural economy grew, the local railroad network expanded
across the county.
In the late 1920s the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway built
southward from Liberal, Kansas, to Amarillo. Construction of the
Rock Island line across the county led to the foundation in 1927
of Gruver, a railroad and farming community that eventually
became the second largest town in the county. In 1931 the Santa
Fe Railroad extended its line from Spearman to the southern edge
of the county to link up with the Rock Island. The two railroads
joined at a new townsite, Morse, which had been laid out in 1928.
In the 1920s and afterward a highway system was developed within
the county to supplement the railroads. In 1927 only one state
highway, running north from Spearman to Guymon, Oklahoma, crossed
the county; only dirt roads connected Spearman to Stratford,
Perryton, and Dumas. By the end of the 1940s, however, a network
of farm roads crisscrossed the county, and paved State highways
117 and 282 (now 15 and 207) linked Hansford County to the rest
of the state.
By 1930, 430 farms and ranches, encompassing more than 415,000
acres, had been established in the county, and wheat occupied
almost 63,000 acres. The population had grown to 3,548. The grim
days of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depressionq of the 1930s set
the area back, however. More than 20 percent of the local farmers
moved off their lands, and by 1940 only 335 farms remained. As a
result, the population of the county dropped to 2,783 by 1940.
Oil was discovered in Hansford County in 1937, and significant
production began in the 1950s. In 1956 production totaled almost
548,000 barrels; in 1960, almost 1,342,000 barrels; in 1974,
about 590,000 barrels; and in 1990, 463,833 barrels. By January
of 1991, 34,928,925 barrels of oil had been extracted from
Hansford County land since 1937.
By the 1980s Hansford County had a diversified economy based on
agriculture, oil, and transportation. Livestock production from
ranching and feedlot operations accounted for approximately 65
percent of the total agricultural output of $107 million in 1983,
and wheat, sorghum, oats, corn, and hay farming made up the
balance. Oil and gas added another $9 million to the economy, and
the local facilities used to store, process, and transport both
agricultural and mineral products also contributed.
The diversification of the county's economy after World War II
led to a substantial increase in population between 1940 and
1970. The population was 4,202 in 1950, 6,208 in 1960, and 6,351
in 1970. The number of residents dropped to 6,209 between 1970
and 1980, however, and in 1990 only 5,283 people lived in the
county. Most of them resided in Spearman (1990 population, 3,197)
and Gruver (1,172); the rest of the population was scattered
throughout the rural areas, either on farms and ranches or in
such minuscule communities as Morse, Hitchland, McKibben,
Phillips Camp, and Oslo.
Spearman, the county seat, is the home of the Stationmaster's
House Museum, and hosts such events as the Hansford Roundup in
May and Fun Day in July. Hansford County generally voted for
Democratic candidates in presidential elections through 1948,
except for William McKinley in 1896 and 1900 and Herbert Hoover
in 1928. From 1952 to 1992 the county voted for Republican
presidential candidates.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hansford County Historical Commission, Hansford
County, Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Taylor, 1980?). Highways of
Texas, 1927 (Houston: Gulf Oil and Refining, 1927). S. G. Reed, A
History of the Texas Railroads (Houston: St. Clair, 1941; rpt.,
New York: Arno, 1981).
H. Allen Anderson