Texline

   Near the northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle lies the tiny town of Texline, population slightly more than 500. It lies just 8 1/2 miles from Clayton, New Mexico and Clayton is where residents of Texline do most of their shopping and where they have most of their social activities, since there is also a movie theater and several restaurants, in Clayton.
  Most of the streets in Texline are dirt and many of them are rather rough. Texline is the oldest town in Dallam County. It was founded in 1888 when the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad set up  divisional offices and shops slightly more than half a mile inside the Texas Panhandle. This was less than one year after the rail line first entered Texas. The town that soon developed around the railroad shops took the name "Texline" due to its location close to the New Mexico border. At the time, New Mexico was still a territory. Three years later, in 1891, Dallam County was created by the Texas Legislature and, since Texline was the only town in the county, it was named county seat, a position it held for twelve years, until 1903, when the county government moved to the new, and bustling, town of Dalhart on the county's southern border. Due to the fact that Texline is the oldest town in the county, it can claim several "firsts." The first county courthouse, first school, first marriage license issued in Dallam County and the first public road, which led from Texline to the Northern Division Headquarters of the famous, but now defunct, XIT Ranch. I will have more about the XIT Ranch in another edition of this blog. Its history is integral to the history of Dallam County and this part of Texas in general.
  Texline today is basically a railroad town and a farming town, though the Fort Worth and Denver Railway liquidated in 1982 and the line is now owned by Burlington Northern. Texline sits at a lofty elevation of 4,673 feet above sea level, which, I believe, makes it the second highest town in Texas, behind Fort Davis, which is 5,050 feet above sea level. The grain elevator is one of the biggest employers in town, along with the school district and the town government.
  There is a claim that the Texline area is the only part of Texas where you can actually see the Rocky Mountains from Texas soil, but that is not all together true because the "official" end of the Rocky Mountains is just north of downtown El Paso, in far west Texas, at the foot of the Franklin  Mountains. There is a commemorative plaque in El Paso saying so. I guess it depends on what your definition of the Rocky Mountains is. At any rate, the mountains of northern
New Mexico can be seen from the Texline area, though they are more than 100 miles away, and that is something many people do not realize.
  Texline is located at the junction of U.S. Highway 87 and Farm Road 296 (a secondary state highway that is unique to Texas), and these are the only paved streets in town. Highway 87 parallels the railroad and it is a very busy highway and it follows one of the busiest rail lines in the country. Highway 87 runs at an angle, northwest to southeast, through part of New Mexico, across Dallam County and part of neighboring Hartley County. It is a four-lane, divided highway for most of that distance, but it is not a freeway. It does not have exits, instead it has
"grade crossings," or direct crossings, with connecting roads. In Texline, however, it is not divided, it is a four lane street that widens into a divided highway on each end of town.
  Texline was recently the subject a news story that made its way around Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma, recently. It was the "feel good" story of the year. I will discuss that in the next edition of this blog.

The Northernmost Part of Texas

   I initially had only one travel blog, called "In My Travels," that was set up for me by my sister at the time when I didn't know how to create a blog. I wrote in that blog alot,  but I had so much stuff I wanted to write about that I created this blog, on my own. The first topic I wrote about in this blog was Union County, New Mexico, in the northeast corner of that wonderful and beautiful state. Union County borders Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado and is only 72 miles from the Kansas border. I said that I believe Union County is my absolute favorite county in the United States. I have written quite a bit about Union County and will write more about it in the future. 
  Meanwhile, in my other travel blog, I am resuming my writing about the Oklahoma Panhandle, that narrow, 34 mile wide strip of the state that sits above the top of the Texas Panhandle. All the while, I have basically neglected writing about the Texas Panhandle, which, along with Far Western Texas, is my favorite part of the Lone Star State.
   I will start with the northwestern part of the Texas Panhandle, to be exact, Dallam County.
Dallam County was created in 1876 and was named for James Dallam, a lawyer and newspaper publisher. It covers 1,505 square miles, which makes it one of the larger counties in a state that has 254 counties, the most, by far, of any state in the nation. One thing that is noticeable about the Texas Panhandle, when looking at a map, is the fact, most of the counties are the exact same size, give or take a few surveying errors. They were laid out to be 30 miles long and 30 miles wide with the county seat at, or near, the center, if possible. The county size is uniform except for the four counties in the northwest part of the Panhandle. These are Dallam, Hartley, Oldham and 
Deaf Smith Counties and these counties are almost double the size of all the other Panhandle counties, roughly 1,500 square miles compared to roughly 900 square miles.
  Dallam County is the coldest place in Texas, on average. The average date for the first freeze in Dalhart, the county seat, in Autumn, is October 16 and the average date for the last freeze in Spring is April 23, which are rather anomalous statistics for Texas, yet the Panhandle has been known to get snowstorms as early as the first week of October and as late as early May. The Texas Panhandle is also known for crippling blizzards and Dallam County has had blizzards where the snowdrifts have been as high as 30 feet! The average first freeze date for Dallam County's second largest town, Texline, is October 12 while the average last freeze date is April 27. A few years ago, I spent the night in Dalhart in the first week of September and the temperature got down to 28 degrees that night!
  Dallam County is next door to Union County, New Mexico, where I started this blog. The first Dallam County town I will write about is Texline, which is located just 8 1/2 miles from Clayton, New Mexico, the county seat of Union County.

The Town Too Tough To Die--Finale

  Today, Tombstone is a tiny town of 1,400 people that lives off of its Wild West fame. Daily re-enactments of the Gunfight at the OK Corral take place. Stagecoach rides are offered along Allen Street, which is in the historic heart of downtown. The Old Cochise County Courthouse is now a fascinating museum that is devoted to interpreting the history of this legendary town. The old courthouse is a state park and has been since 1959. It is Arizona's smallest state park, but one of the most heavily visited. It sat vacant for nearly three decades after the county government moved to Bisbee in 1929.
  A 3 block stretch of East Allen Street is now closed to vehicles and has been turned into a pedestrian-only street. The only vehicles allowed are emergency vehicles and delivery trucks that supply the stores in the area. Of course, the stagecoaches are also allowed. This stretch of the street was closed approximately five years ago after being discussed for several years before that, but the closure was postponed because the post office was located in that area. After the post office was moved to another part of town, the street was closed. At first, dirt was dumped on top of the asphalt to give the street more of a frontier look, but, every time it rained, the dirt turned into a sea of mud and flowed downhill, creating a horrible mess. Today, the street is still paved which does not add to the Wild West ambience at all, but the business owners do not want the pavement ripped up because they think it will make their businesses too dusty, and yet they want the street to look more authentic. Hmmmm. I think the pavement should be torn up, but I guess I really don't have a say in the matter.
One block away, there is a short stretch of East Toughnut Street that is closed to traffic. I noticed this on my visit to Tombstone last month. I am not sure what the reason for this closure is, but it does not seem to correspond to a partial closure of that street a few years ago. That closure was due to the fact that a mining tunnel underneath Tombstone has caused a portion of the street to collapse. Therein lies one of Tombstone's biggest problems today. It is severely undercut by mining tunnels that could cave in at any time because the miners a century ago cut their subterranean tunnels too close to the surface of the ground in their quest to extract as much silver 
and other minerals as possible.
  The Tombstone of today is a busy town, but nearly all of the employment is of the minimum wage variety. What surprises most people is the fact that the Tombstone school district is one of the poorest school districts in Arizona. After decades of holding high school and middle school classes in dilapidated facilities, they finally built a new middle school/high school combination on the edge of town, near the water treatment plant. However, they cannot afford to build outdoor sports facilities until the old high school and middle school are sold. They are currently playing baseball on the football field, on the edge of the historic district, even though the bathrooms were condemned by the city a few years ago and spectators have to use port-a-potties. They are playing baseball and football amongst abandoned buildings. The old high school is abandoned except for the gym, which is still used for basketball practice on an alternating basis between the boys and girls teams, and as dressing rooms for football games. The tennis courts at the old school are in such bad shape that they are almost unusable. Opposing teams have complained about Tombstone's sports facilities, but the athletic league knows the school district is doing everything they can to alleviate that situation.
  Tombstone  is a town that survives because of its legendary past. It is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Arizona, but there alot of problems that threaten this little town and many of the problems are the direct result of the town's legendary past.

The Town Too Tough To Die--The Legend

  The years that made Tombstone a legend lasted less a decade. The town of Tombstone was founded in 1879 and the 1880s were its glory years. The single most important event in the town's history, the Gunfight at the OK Corral, occurred on March 15, 1881, just two years after Tombstone's beginning. Of the decade of the 1880s, the most well known events happened from 1880 to 1882, just a three year span! There are other events during that decade that made Tombstone a legend, but this three year time span are the most well-known, the most important. These are the things that are keeping Tombstone alive to this day. The Wild West Days are what draw tourists to this otherwise obscure town in the high desert of southeastern Arizona. 
  Tombstone had its beginning in March of 1879 and by the time the 1880 Census was enumerated, the population had risen to about 3,500. One year later, it was up to about 11,000. In 1882 and 1883, the population was at its peak of around 14,000 people. Tombstone exploded from a barren patch of desert to a town of 14,000 people in about four years! 
  In 1881, the booming town of Tombstone became the county seat of the newly created 
Cochise County, just two years after the town was born.
Tombstone's meteoric rise to prominence was followed by a precipitous fall in the latter half of the 1880s, when the mines began to shut down, one by one.   In the 1890 Census, the population had dropped all the way to 1,800 and, by 1900, it had dropped to 650. When Tombstone lost the county seat in 1929 to the newly booming town of Bisbee, the population had fallen to about 200. After the county government left Tombstone and relocated to Bisbee, the Old Cochise County Courthouse, once humming with activity, fell into disuse and remained vacant until 1955, when restoration efforts were begun to restore the historic structure. The last county office moved out in 1931 and that was the beginning of a 24 year period that the building stood vacant. There was an attempt to convert the old courthouse to a hotel in the 1940s, but the plans fell through. The old courthouse was built in 1882 in the shape of a cross and it was constructed in the Victorian style. After restoration efforts were completed in the late 1950s, the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park was created in 1959 and now the old courthouse is a repository of all things historical relating to Tombstone's fabulous and gaudy history. It is one of the best historical museums I have ever been too and one of Arizona's most visited state parks. The courtroom was restored to its 1882 appearance. Even the gallows behind the courthouse has been preserved. 
  Today, Tombstone is a town that survives because of its history, its Wild West history. That is really the only thing that is keeping the town alive today. After Tombstone lost the county seat in 1929, it was thought that it would become a ghost town because, since the mines had all played out and the county government relocated to Bisbee, people thought that this once famous town had no reason to exist anymore. But then, in the late 1950s, it tourism potential was realized and now over a million people per year visit Tombstone. When the tourist industry began in earnest  in Tombstone, the town's now famous slogan "The Town Too Tough To Die" was coined.

The Town Too Tough To Die

  Well, I guess I will take a little break from blogging about travels on Indian Reservations. I was getting a little burned out on it. I will return to it another time.
  Right now, I want to write about one of Arizona's most well known tourist attractions. The town of Tombstone is one of the most famous towns of Wild West lore in the world, if not the most famous.
  Everyone knows about the Earp Brothers;  Wyatt, Virgil, Warren and Morgan and Doc Holliday, who followed Wyatt Earp around everywhere he went. The Clanton and McLawry Brothers, who fought the Earps and Doc Holliday in the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral, are also well known  names that are associated with the legend and lore of Tombstone. Today, Tombstone's economic mainstay is tourism and its rich Wild West history. It is one of the most famous towns in the world.
  In the late 1870s, Ed Schieffelin, who once worked as an Army Scout,  was prospecting in the area that later became western Cochise County. He spent quite a bit of time in this area, even though the Chiricahua Apaches  had posed a big danger to anyone who dared venture into this area. After taking a short break from his prospecting work, he spent some time at Fort Huachuca to rest.  He told several friends what he had been doing and one of the friends, after hearing about Schieffelin's plans, said to him "Better take your coffin with you, you will find your tombstone there and nothing else." One of the soldiers said "The only rock you will find will be your
tombstone!"   Schieffelin ignored everbody's warning and headed back out into the high desert of southeastern Arizona Territory to continue looking for mineral riches. His first discovery came in the late summer of 1877 and he quickly filed a claim on his discovery and named the mine the Lucky Cuss. Shortly thereafter, a hastily built canvas and matchstick town called Watervale developed near the Lucky Cuss Mine, but it was really more of a mining camp than a town and was in a poor location . Almost immediately, plans were made to build a permanent town on a flat area nearby called Goose Flats. After a townsite company was formed, lots were sold for $5 each and they were immediately snatched up by people who wanted to partake in the mining wealth.While the permanent town was taking shape, two more silver veins were discovered and the subsequent mines that evolved were named the Tombstone and the Tough Nut. The first mine's name was a direct reference to what the two friends at Fort Huachuca had told Ed Schieffelin two years earlier and the second mine's name was in reference to the fact that someone had told  Schieffelin "You are a tough nut to crack!" The permanent town of Tombstone was born in March of 1879 and this is the town that is now famous the world over.

Ganado

  Ganado is a town on the Navajo Indian Reservation that has about 1,500 people. It is one of the most historic towns on the reservation. It got started in 1871 as a trading post that was established by Charles Crary. Within a year, a competing trading post opened for business and the tiny settlement took the name Pueblo Colorado, after Pueblo Colorado Wash, which is a dry river
 that runs just outside of town. Not surprisingly, mail hardly ever got to this town because it was constantly being sent to Pueblo, Colorado.
This situation existed for five years until the name was changed to Ganado, in honor of Ganado Mucho, the western leader of the Navajo Tribe and one of the signers of the Navajo Peace Treaty of 1868. "Ganado Mucho" is Spanish for "Many Cattle." His Navajo name was Totsohonii Hastiin, which means "Man of the Big Water Clan." This name change alleviated the mail delivery problem to the tiny community. The name change was brought about by Lorenzo Hubbell, who purchased Charles Crary's trading post in 1876 and this enterprise soon became the focal point of the fledgling community. Today it is still in operation and is part of 
Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.
The park includes the still active trading post and Lorenzo Hubbell's home, which is open for guided tours. Hubbell opened quite a few trading posts, many of them on the Navajo Reservation, and became an important political figure in Arizona history. He ran for United States Senate in 1914, but lost. 
  In 1880, when an act of Congress enlarged the Navajo Indian Reservation, Hubbell successfully lobbied to have his land around the Ganado Trading Post excluded from the reservation, based on his previous status as a settler on the land. To this day, the 160 acres of land that make up the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, is a small "island" of land that is not part of the
reservation, but I am sure this "island" was larger at one time, back in Lorenzo Hubbell's day.
He wound up receiving official title to the land.

An Unexpected Sight

  Continuing west from St. Michaels, State Highway 264 begins a slow, steady ascent to the summit of the Defiance Plateau. Since Window Rock sits at an elevation of 6,862 feet above sea level, I would guess that St. Michaels is slightly higher than that.  
  Most of the Navajo Indian Reservation is barren desert with a distinctly red hue to the landscape, from red sand dunes to red rock formations. Other parts of the reservation are a high desert grassland studded with pinon and juniper trees, most notably Utah Juniper with its distinctive blue berries. But these areas still have the red accents to the landscape. However, the first time I ever drove the stretch of  Highway 264 west of Window Rock and St. Michaels, I was stunned by what I saw! As the highway climbs up and over the Defiance Plateau, it enters a very thick forest of ponderosa pine with  some aspen and spruce trees thrown in for good measure! It reminded me of the forest around Flagstaff and Flagstaff is a very thickly forested city.   I am not sure what the elevation is at the highest point on Highway 264, but it is roughly about 8,500 feet above sea level. On both edges of the heavily forested area, there is a wooden sign that is next to the highway that looks identical to Forest Service signs that announce the boundary of a national forest. But these are not Forest Service signs, these signs were erected by the Navajo Division of Forestry. These signs say "DEFIANCE PLATEAU, NAVAJO NATION FOREST." This is a lush area with bountiful game and a few, small lakes, but it is still a dry forest like the one around Flagstaff is with no permanent streams, just streams that flow for short distances and then disappear underground and also plenty of dry streambeds. This forest has roughly 150 to 200 pine trees per acre, but there are probably some places with an even higher density of trees.
  In subsequent trips through the Navajo Reservation, I would find other areas of the reservation that are just as heavily forested as the Defiance Plateau is, especially in the Chuska Mountains, which is why that now defunct sawmill was set up and the nearby town of Navajo, New Mexico was built to house the sawmill employees. 
   About 16 miles beyond the summit of the Defiance Plateau lies the town of Ganado, one of the most historic towns on the Navajo Reservation.