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Of the canyons that break the eastern edge of the Staked Plains, Palo Duro is by far the most spectacular. As one approaches the edge, the earth opens up into a vast gash, a geological and ecological wonder. " It begins in northeastern Randall County about 12 miles east of the town of Canyon and 15 miles southeast of Amarillo where Palo Duro Creek has cut a miniature Grand Canyon 600 to 800 feet deep into the brightly colored sedimentary rocks of the Permian, Triassic, and late Tertiary age" . .   Read more Look inside

Life is never easy but specially so when your born in a boxcar in the center of a railroad siding in the Great Depression.

"While I was going to West Texas State in Canyon, Texas, two boys had gone hunting down in the canyon during Christmas break and been forced into a cave because of a blizzard. In their looking for wood, they found armor and weapons left" . . . Read more Look inside  . . . for more like this please see Mysterious Texas

Behind it lay the Lords of Chaos, a band of teenage misfits led by Kevin Foster, from Canyon Texas, an 18-year-old vicious hatemonger who was known as "God" to his five-man gang.

"Within seven months, they defaulted on the mortgage and the bank foreclosed. The Fosters retreated to a mobile home in Canyon, Texas. Now back in Texas, Kevin was living in a trailer, with two fathers, neither his own" . . . Read more Look inside

Early Life in Canyon, Texas (1926-43)

"I was born in Canyon, Texas on January 31, 1926, and I grew up in the “Dust Bowl” during the Great Depression. My father's father was one of the earliest settlers in Canyon, which is 17 miles south of Amarillo. He first arrived in 1896 with my grandmother and their two small children. My grandfather expected to be the leading blacksmith . . . " Read more

HAUNTED PLACES IN CANYON TEXAS
According to this book about haunted places in Texas these places in Canyon have ghosts "East Annex of Panhandle Plains Museum, Home at 902 Fifth Avenue, West Texas A&M University Lobby and Stafford Hall in the West Texas A&M University ..." . . .  Check it out . . . for more like this please see Mysterious Texas

The Resting Places of Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Interesting Texans

"Lincoln Guy Conner came to Texas with his family after the Civil War. By 1887 he had married and established a small cattle herd in Randall County. After purchasing a large block of land in 1888, he constructed a half-dugout from logs hauled from nearby Palo Duro Canyon. Conner established a general store and post office . . ."  Read more Look inside

by Theodore Adolphus “Dot” Babb

The stories of those Texas pioneers who survived captivity among the Comanches are full of harrowing interest. Of particular interest is that told by Dot Babbs in his 1912 narrative.

In September of 1865 thirteen-year-old T. A. "Dot" Babb was abducted by Comanches and adopted into their tribe. After years of captivity he was returned. He spent the last 30 years of his life in Amarillo and is buried in Randall County . . .  read more and look inside

A century ago Americans were still moving west, settling in new states, establishing themselves in new environments. That pattern was followed by the grandparents, then by the parents of Robert L. Pirtle, the author of this autobiography.

"Before they were married, Dad went to meet Mother one evening at West Texas State Teachers College in Canyon, Texas, where Mother was enrolled. As he was passing the Girls Dormitory, Dad was surprised to see the night watchman up in a tree peeping in the window of one of the college girls . . . Read more Look inside

Seven Earth kids from Amarillo, Texas, live a normal life till they are hit with an alien life essence from another galaxy. They find themselves with dual personalities, advanced knowledge, and special powers. A Clean adventure. They also find they are involved in a war against a ruthless reptilian humanoid enemy that will stop at nothing to gain total domination of the entire universe. They must defend themselves against the aliens as well as Earth's secret alien government agency. Area 61. Will they be able to survive to make it to Talon Prime and defeat the enemy?... The author, Freddie Perez worked as a Police Officer in Amarillo, Texas, for 27 years and was a Randall County Deputy for 8 years . . . Read more Look inside

“Her feet may be in town, but her ass — and the rest of her is in the county,” said Canyon Police Chief Haskell Maddox. “Obviously she was shot in the city --- she just fell into the county,” responded Sheriff’s Patrol Deputy Savanna Breeze. “That means I’ve got -- at best -- assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder in the city. She didn’t die until she was in the county. So, this is in the county’s lap." Nobody wanted to deal with the murder of Myrtle Dagmar Puckett; the head of the North American Atheists Foundation. But when there’s a Corpse In Canyon, a small town in the Texas Panhandle . . .Read more Look inside

Curt Brummett, "After about two or three weeks, my wife Deb and me figured we would go to see a couple of friends or ours in Mountainair, New Mexico. It's four hours from Canyon, Texas, to Mountainair and another seven hours from Mountainair to Leon and Darla's..." Curt Brummett has lived a story-creating existence, and now he's a professional story teller. He has worked as a cowboy, a roper, a roughneck, and a firefighter... Brummett lives with his wife, Sheila, in Canyon Texas Read more

Starting in 1938 at age three, my parents separated by divorce. Given up to three Foster Families, hard times and good living, eventually not being accepted by Cal and Mimi Farley at Boy's Ranch, finally, in 1940, finding a permanent home on the farm of George and Mattie Cope at Happy Texas. Raised in . . . Read more Look inside

Loneliness pervaded the lives of pioneers on the American plains, including the empty expanses of West Texas. Most settlers lived in isolation broken only by occasional community gatherings such as funerals and religious. Louis Fairchild mines the letters and journals of West Texas settlers.

"In 1911 C.M. Thomas, owner of a furniture store in Canyon, Texas, reported that he had not taken his hearse out of the barn for nine months. During this period there had been only one death from natural causes and only one by violence in the whole county . . . Read more, Look inside

In Empire Builder in the Texas Panhandle, author Paul H. Carlson tells the story of Chicago-based William Henry Bush and his role in shaping development of the Texas Panhandle from the 1880s to the 1930s.

"The men purchased an enormous amount of territory and freely occupied adjoining land that the State of Texas had set aside for the support of its schools. After it was fenced in 1882, the Frying Pan enclosed about 250,000 acres of land ... half of Potter County below the Canadian River and stretching southward into the northern reaches of Randall County" . . . Read more

by Red Steagal

Red Steagall is West Texas cow country clean to the bone . . .  and proud of it. He couldn't hide it even if he tried. Where he came from is who he is, both as a man and as an artist.

Found Inside: "Red went off to college, to West Texas State, down the road at Canyon, in the Palo Duro Country. He studied animal husbandry and agronomy, joined the rodeo club, and put together a band that would work cheap  " . . . Read more Look inside

Interned in a camp at Hereford in the Texas panhandle, more than 3,000 Italian POWs spent the last years of World War II an ocean away from their family and friends. In the last year of the war, the prisoners suffered a siege of hunger dictated by government-ordered cutbacks in rations. The men called this episode la fame and found it difficult to supplement their meager meals. A handful of men in camp were artists, and it was this small group of prisoners who struck a deal with the priest of St . Mary ' s Church at Umbarger , Texas. In exchange for a home-cooked meal each noon, the artists agreed to decorate the plain church with murals and carvings . . . Read More

"the man in question had not been the superintendent in Clarendon but had held that position in Canyon... putting explosives in his wife's car and blowing her to bits. The man's name was A.D. Payne. . . . Read more and Look Inside

As children, James and John were inseparable. They did everything together, including things Texas Panhandle townsfolk probably didn't appreciate.

"We helped her clean out the root cellar at her farm in Ogg, Texas. For that two day affair we received 75 cents each and she took us to the local Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. Remember the old saying that “if you remember the 60's you" . . . Read more Look inside

Robert and Ava Nell were farming a few miles southwest of Amarillo and also had rented a farm at Happy, Texas, so we farmed with them for one year. We stayed with them for about a month on the Amarillo farm while Robert and Clayton built . . .

Georgia O'Keeffe, a superbly gifted American artist usually associated with New Mexico, spent nearly four years in Texas, most of them in the Panhandle. She taught art in the public schools of Amarillo for two years, 1912-1914, and headed the art department at West Texas Normal College (now West Texas A & M University) in Canyon from the fall of 1916 to early 1918 . . . Read more

In the mid 1930s, North America's Great Plains faced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in world history. Donald Worster's classic chronicle of the devastating years between 1929 and 1939 tells the story of the Dust Bowl in ecological as well as human terms.

"Randall County, Texas $10,000; the merchants of Amarillo calculated from 3 to 15 per cent damage to their merchandise, not to mention the loss of shoppers during the storms" . . . Read more Look inside

From America's most popular, bestselling Western writer, each novel in this brilliant new series follows the trail of a different gun--each gun with its own fiery story to tell.

Randall County. Texas
Late summer 1894
"Kris," James said to his sister, shaking his head. "I'm too old to play that game" . . . Read more, Look inside

Found Inside: "John Adair died unexpectedly in 1885, and Cornelia Adair became Goodnight's partner. Most commentators assert that Cornelia would become more engaged in JA affairs than John had ever been. Cornelia's partnership with Goodnight would end in 1887, and she would continue as sole owner of the ranch for the next thirty-three years. By 1887 the ranch had grown to over six hundred thousand acres and covered portions of Armstrong, Randall, Donley, Briscoe, Swisher, Floyd and Hall Counties. Historian Frances Vick notes that at this point "Cornelia became one of the few women in the world to preside over such a huge enterprise and financial empire." . . . Read more Look inside

Marsha Sharp was the coach of the Texas Tech Lady Raiders basketball team for over twenty years. This book traces Sharp's basketball journey from her beginnings in Tulia, Plainview, Lockney and Canyon Texas through her twenty-third season with the Lady Raiders. A 2003 inductee into the national Women's Basketball Hall of Fame . . . Read more

In 1912, at age 24, Georgia O’Keeffe boarded a train in Virginia and headed west, to the prairies of the Texas Panhandle, to take a position as art teacher for the newly organized Amarillo Public Schools. Subsequently she would join the faculty at what was then West Texas State Normal College (now West Texas A&M University). Already a thoroughly independent-minded woman, she maintained an active correspondence with her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and other friends back east during the years she lived in Texas . . . Read more Look inside

Resources:

West Texas History & Memories

Early Life in Texas County by County

Books about Texas People and Places

Amazing People from Texas County by County

These Deceased Residents of Randall County Left a total $56,193 in Unclaimed Money for their heirs. Please share this with your family and friends from Randall County, Canyon and Umbarger Texas to let them know how to claim their inheritance from the Texas Comptroller's Office. . . see the list

Randall County Treasures