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The Lazy S Ranch, one of the last major ranches to be established in Texas, came into being at a time when most of the other great ranches were disappearing. Founded in 1898 by Dallas banker and rancher Colonel Christopher Columbus Slaughter, the Lazy S grew to comprise nearly 250,000 acres of the western High Plains in Cochran and Hockley counties, much of which lay in a single contiguous pasture of more than 180,000 acres . . . Read more Look Inside

On New Year's Day in 1870, ten-year-old Adolph Korn was kidnapped by an Apache raiding party. Traded to Comanches, he thrived in the rough, nomadic existence, quickly becoming one of the tribe's fiercest warriors. Forcibly returned to his parents after three years, Korn never adjusted to life in white society. He spent his last years in a cave, all but forgotten by his family.

"They found the women, children, and wounded men camped at Quemado (Silver Lake), a small salt lake in northern Cochran County, Texas  . . . Read more Look inside

"He used his time to rob the bank in Morton, Texas, and elude the resulting manhunt. But on the night of December 1, 1945, he was hit by a poultry truck in Little Rock, Arkansas, and died of his injuries. Kimes typified the kind of ..." Read more Look inside

"The first chance I got to make real money---money I could keep and spend for myself---was plucking turkeys for three to eight cents a bird in Clovis, New Mexico, during summer vacations. I lived in Whiteface, Texas—about sixty miles from Clovis. Pretty soon, I racked up enough turkeys to buy myself a $6.25 guitar and a 25¢ instruction book. From then on, every spare minute, I practiced with my guitar and worked on songs ..." Read more Look inside

by Jerome Stueart

"Thank you, Sandra Keith, who offered me in my junior year of high school a directed study class in Creative Writing when all that was offered to juniors and senior in the whole school was Small Engine Repair. (I went to a high school of twelve people in Bledsoe, Texas). She also midwifed a tangled novel over two summers after I graduated high school. I used to go to her house and she would critique three chapters at a time. She started this belief that I was a writer. I guess I couldn't shake it. I owe so much to her for changing my life at sixteen..." Read more Look inside

From Junior High to the Sugar Bowl, an Inside Look at Football Through the Eyes of An Official

by Mike Liner

A veteran college football official recounts his journey from local youth sports to calling some of the most important games of the Big 12 Conference."If the Southwest Conference had called me when I was just starting out in Morton, Texas, and asked me to work SWC games without pay, I would have jumped at the chance. I'm sure 99 percent of the officials I've known would have taken that . . ." Read more Look inside . . . for more like this see Texas Football Stories County by County

"During a UFO flap in this area in 1975, rancher Darwood Marshall found oddly mutilated cattle on his ranch near Whiteface Texas. On March 10, the bloodless body of a heifer was discovered with its neck twisted grotesquely skyward, its internal organs neatly removed and its navel cored out. A few days later, he found a similarly mutilated steer. Both animals were found in thirty-foot circles of scorched or flattened vegetation..." Read more Look Inside See Also: Mysterious Texas

by Paula Paul

Follows the stories of Caroline and Pearlie, two teenage girls growing up in Morton Texas in the 1950s. Though both girls are the same age and growing up in the same town, their lives are very different. Caroline is a white girl, living on a farm with her parents and younger brother and sister. Pearlie is a black girl, living with her parents and siblings. She attends a different school than Caroline, though they do ride the same bus to their schools. She and her family also work in the cotton fields in Caroline's family's farm in the summer. With alternating narrative voices, the reader learns about the events of one summer, when Caroline and Pearlie's lives become intertwined... Read more Look inside . . . for more like this please see Black Texans in History

"J. B. Allen from Whiteface, Texas, was one of the few poets I heard at the Cowboy Hall of Fame who actually looked the part of a real cowboy. He wore jeans, a denim jacket, a western shirt, boots without the pants leg stuffed in them, ..." Read more Look inside

by Ellery Queen

"There were several letters from a Mrs. Beulah Ricks in Bledsoe, Texas, apparently the man's mother, containing nothing which seemed pertinent. Of one thing Collins was certain: the deaths of Earl Genneman and Steve Ricks were connected..." Read more Look inside

by William Shirley Carr

This book contains many stories about my life, from when I was born at home near Girard, Texas, to the present time. "At that time, Lubbock was "dry" (as opposed to "wet') which meant that the sale of alcoholic beverages was illegal. The nearest “wet” areas were Post, Texas, some forty miles southeast of Lubbock (which Jones remembers went “wet” in 1960), and Bledsoe, Texas, some sixty-eight miles west of Lubbock, near the New Mexico border..." Read more Look inside

Mother and Dad did not approve of our going to dances after we married. But we never discussed it. We just went on with our married friends to Portales or Bledsoe, Texas. We danced in the American Legion Hall at Portales, and in an old, abandoned grocery store at Bledsoe. It made a wonderful dance hall. About fifty feet long, ..." Read more Look inside

"When I was in junior high school, I had heard of the towns of White Oak and White Deer. I'd heard of Whiteface , which was named after Hereford cattle , which have white faces . But Whiteface is right up the road, eighty miles from Hereford itself . When Hereford looks in the mirror does it see Whiteface? ... Read more Look inside

Hailing from cowboy stock on both sides of his family tree, J. B. Allen worked cattle from the Great Divide to Fort Worth, then settled down near Whiteface, Texas, where he and his wife, Margaret, tended their own herd of crossbred cows... Read more Look inside

Also part of the Air Force file on Levelland was a report from a man living in Whiteface, Texas. He told Barth, “While driving north about 7 miles north of Sundown, Texas, I saw a light about the size of a basketball about 200 or more feet above the ground traveling east to west ... Read more Look inside

"Another trick was to refer to horses that already had a reputation, so I also quoted rancher John Birdwell of Whiteface, Texas, who said, “He's an extraordinarily good hand. He broke a bunch of four- to six- year- old Binion horses for ..." Read more Look inside

by Martha Blair

"It is located between Amarillo and Lubbock, Texas. She was rebellious there also. But at least she graduated from Whiteface, Texas High School at age 17 she petitioned to be emancipated. It was not even notified. She and some other girls went to Lubbock, Texas and started living a wild, dangerous lifestyle..." Read more Look inside

By that time, his family had moved to Whiteface, Texas, so the high school guitarist/singer hitchhiked 80 miles each way every Saturday to make his unpaid gig. Walker spent the next several years performing in a variety of settings..." Read more Look inside

by Treeca Yarbrough

"One time when they were pastoring a church, in Whiteface, Texas, the weather was real hot. They didn't have any air conditioning. The other kids were in school. They weren't anywhere around Oleta. She decided that while she was cooking..." Read more Look inside . . . for more like this please see Texas Church History

"According to Harlie and Maxine Adams of Bledsoe, Texas, arrow heads, spear points and other Indian artifacts have been collected by generations of arrow head hunters around a spring-fed lake just east of Bledsoe. Before Mackenzie's. . . "

by Alfred Scherer, MD

Dr. Alfred Scherer's path to his true self and calling was not an easy one. His childhood was one of struggle, both personal and physical. Soon, the small, weak child learned to flex his intellectual muscles and curiosity. When a dedicated high school biology teacher took the bright young man under his wing, Alfreds potential took flight. He followed his destiny to become a healer . . . Read more Look inside

Howdy! is a collection of brief stories concerning West Texans-some of long ago, others not-so-old-of people who have lived in this part of the Texas. The stories have been gathered by simple listening to those who either knew these people or actually lived the true-to-life adventures. . . . Thrill to the story about a homesteading wife and mother who lived and survived the rigors of living on a lonely claim in Cochran County . . . Read more

"A few days later a man came up to the house on a motor bike stating that he was from the Western Union and he had a bus ticket for an Alice Fay Bennett. I was so glad to see that ticket. The ticket was for a town called Morton, Texas. Beth took me to the bus station she wished me luck and told me to write her. I knew then that Beth was a good sister. She had forgiven me for what I had done" . . . Read more Look inside

The distinctive high mesa straddling West Texas and Eastern New Mexico creates a vista that is equal parts sprawling lore and big blue sky. From Lubbock, the area's informal capital, to the farthest reaches of the staked plains known as the Llano Estacado, the land and its inhabitants trace a tradition of tenacity through numberless cycles of dust storms and drought. In 1887, a bison hunter . . . Read more Look inside

C.C. Slaughter: Rancher, Banker, Baptist

by David J. Murrah

"In 1970, While I was working on a master's degree at Texas Tech University and teaching in Morton, Texas, I needed a topic for my thesis. A colleague in Morton, Elvis E. Fleming, suggested that I examine the life of C. C. Slaughter and noted . . ." Read more Look inside

"While living in Whiteface, Billy Walker attended a Bob Wills dance in nearby Morton and met Will's guitarist, the legendary Eldon Shamblin, who graciously showed the eager young Walker . . ."  "Charlene Condray was born in in Morton. Both her parents were musical, and Charlene sang with her family at church singings from an early age" . . . Read more Look inside

" 40 percent of America's baseballs are covered with leather produced in Morton, Texas.

Ben Ansolabehere (he's of Basque origin) runs a company called Great Western Meat Company. When Ben first started, he got a boost from the SBA with $300,000 loan . . . Read more Look inside

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You know your from Morton, Tx when.....