city power & light

 

Today the community of Crosbyton, population less than 2,000, is surrounded by wind turbines and the municipal power company is out of business.  Nice jaunt today for "Junk in the Truck."

 

Crosbyton, Texas

boxcar art

 

Business in Wayside has gone, well—by the wayside.  Sometimes called a ghost town, Wayside has a closed school, community church, cemetery and a defunct elevator.  The community, on Ranch Road 285 south of Palo Duro Canyon, was founded as a rural school district in 1893.   Mrs. Hervey J. Bradford named the place Wayside, for its location on the "way-side" of the canyon, when she opened a post office in September 1897.  It’s not a place you generally pass through going somewhere else.

 

Wayside, Texas

9.5.2016

relics of the past

 

Scattered across the South Plains, like remnants of Stonehenge monuments, grain elevators anchor forgotten places.  Many small agricultural towns were linked to larger cities by the railroad.  Silos like these were an important step in the marketing of the grain harvest. Increasingly,  silos and short line railroads bypass diminishing towns and now two-thirds of grain is moved by truck.  Abandoned grain elevators on weedy spurs become monuments to times past.

 

Roundup, Texas

US 84 and FM 2131

11.1.2015

the blue door

 

In 2012 the Harvest Queen Mill was dethroned -- another Plainview business bites the dust.  Agribusiness conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland cut 1,000 jobs, including the 30 or so employees in Plainview, due to declining corn and soybean prices.The Plainview Harvest Queen Mill and Elevator was built in 1926 to mill wheat. The facility was converted in the 1970s to produce industrial starch from grain sorghum. ADM, an international corporation out of UK, acquired the facility in 1985.  A fixture on the Plainview skyline, this portion of the mill is about six stories with the blue door on the 3rd level.

 

Harvest Queen Mill and Elevator

1208 N. Columbia

Plainview, Texas

2.1.2015

photo courtesy of  Plainview Herald



sorghum hill

 

The color of the mature head of grain sorghum, or milo, depends on the variety of seed planted.  Ben Franklin is credited with introducing the crop in the 1700s.  Sorghum uses include food grain for humans, livestock feed and fuel ethanol production.  This yield on the South Plains is good this year.    There were at least six towns in Texas named Providence.  The one in Floyd County is now referred to as a "populated place."  The school is gone -- just a marker with the date 1923 remains.  The Providence Elevator is still in business but don't expect a meal at the Crume Gin & Café down the road -- it's closed.

 

Providence, Texas

Floyd County

Farm Roads 2301 and 788

10.26.2014

open education

 

Today only Crosbyton, Ralls and Lorenzo have schools in Crosby County.  The situation was different in the earlier part of the20th century.  Small towns like Emma, Cone and Estacado once  populated the high plains and most built a school house.  The school in Doughtery was built in 1929 but today only partial brick walls still stand.  What looked like a prosperous future in the 1920s faded in the 1930s with the depression, dust bowl and declining cotton production.  The Producers grain elevator towers on the horizon but is also devoid of life and business.  Rural towns are not completely dead but in dire need of life support.

 

Doughtery, Crosby County, Texas

9.21.2013

rusty hulk

 

The rusting grain elevator is the largest structure in town. It reminds me of the prow of an ancient battleship sailing westward. And like antiquated battleships, grain elevators are in mothballs -- sidelined and empty -- victims of technology and economy.

 

Nazareth, Texas

11.20.2011