Dumas, Texas

Until the mid-1880's, no range fences existed in the Texas Panhandle. Thus when winter blizzards came, cattle drifted from Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas onto the Texas ranches of T ("Box T"--Dominion Cattle Co. Ltd.), 7K ("Seven K"--York, Parker & Draper), CC ("Bar C's"--Creswell Land & Cattle Co.), ^ ("Turkey Track"--Hansford Land & Cattle Co.), LX (Bates & Beal), LIT (Littlefield), and LE (Lee & Reynolds). The influx caused these ranches in the Canadian River breaks to be overgrazed, for by spring roundup there were as many northern as local cattle in the herds. To prevent the costly and time-consuming job of separating the cattle, each Texas rancher agreed to construct a fence along his north boundary line. The resulting fence was 200 miles long and ran from the northeast corner of the Panhandle southwest to near the site where Dumas was later founded, then west about 35 miles into New Mexico. It was a 4-strand, 4-barb fence with posts 30 feet apart and a gate every 3 miles. The materials amounted to about 65 carloads of wire and posts hauled from Dodge City. In 1890, however, to comply with an 1889 state law prohibiting any fence from crossing or enclosing public property, most of the fence was removed. (1969)

Dumas, the county seat of Moore County, is at the junction of U.S. highways 87 and 287 in the center of the county. It was named for Louis Dumas, president of the Panhandle Townsite Company in Sherman, who purchased railroad survey lands in the Panhandle . In January 1891 Dumas and his associates formed the Moore County Townsite Company and platted the town on a site some five miles south of South Palo Duro Creek. The first building housed the company office, a hotel, a general store, and the first post office. James C. Wilson served as first postmaster and was followed by John F. Patterson, who opened a general store later that year. The following year Moore County was organized, and Dumas was elected county seat. By then several lots had been sold and a courthouse erected. The first school was constructed in 1892 on the block west of the courthouse. A plague of grasshoppers in the summer of 1893 and a severe winter during 1893-94 almost reduced Dumas to a ghost town. Even Louis Dumas gave up hope and moved back to Grayson County. At times during the next few years only one family was reported as inhabiting the townsite. In 1900 Arthur Nield's mercantile store was the sole business in operation. In 1904 Phillips and Son bought this establishment and started an enterprise that is still in operation. J. V. Mills opened a rival general store, and the first bank was opened in 1908. Since there was no railroad, supplies were hauled overland from Amarillo. A skating rink was opened, and the county's first newspaper, the Moore County Pioneer , began circulation in 1909. Two churches had been established, and by 1910 automobiles and telephones were in use. When the Enid, Ochiltree and Western Railroad announced plans to build through Dumas, the population increased from twenty-three in 1903 to over 100 by 1915. Though that railroad scheme fell through, Dumas grew to around 200 and had a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, a lumberyard, a drugstore, and other businesses serving area ranchers and wheat farmers. After cotton was introduced to the county in 1918, a gin was opened in Dumas. The determination of the Dumas residents to stay in their windswept environment paid off when oil and natural gas were discovered in the county in 1926. The population grew rapidly as Shamrock Oil and Gas and other major companies moved into the vicinity. In 1931 the long-awaited hopes for a railroad were realized with the building of the North Plains and Santa Fe line from Amarillo to Boise City, Oklahoma. These new developments greatly boosted the town's economic, civic, and cultural growth. Streets were paved, a fire department was organized, a new courthouse was built, and a new newspaper, the Moore County News , replaced the defunct Pioneer . Despite the Dust Bowl , the population of Dumas grew to 2,500 by 1935. In 1936 a zinc-smelting plant was established in the vicinity, as were several carbon black plants that utilized the sour gas from the oilfields ( see CARBON BLACK INDUSTRY ). World War II further stimulated the area's petroleum industry, causing the population to increase from 2,117 in 1940 to 6,127 by 1950. On July 29, 1956, the county's worst disaster, a fire at the Shamrock-McKee plant near Dumas, killed nine plant employees and ten firemen. By 1965 deep-well irrigation and several petrochemical plants had further enhanced the town's economy. The population continued to grow, from 8,477 in 1960 to 12,194 in 1980, when Dumas had twenty-two churches, eight city parks, six public schools, two banks, a hospital, a nursing home, a library, two radio stations, a cable television company, and 257 businesses. In 1990 the population was 12,871, and in 2000 it was 13,747. Dumas is in the heart of one of the state's leading grain sorghum producing areas ( see SORGHUM CULTURE ). Moore County also produces large quantities of natural gas, as well as two-thirds of the nation's helium ( see HELIUM PRODUCTION ). Several feedlots, grain elevators, beef pack

Have proved beneficial from earliest times when prehistoric man developed first industry in Texas by mining flint deposits along the Canadian River. Items made from these quarries have been found over a large portion of the western United States. Slabs of dolomite from area were used to build sturdy, warm homes; interiors were coated with mixture of sand, clay and caliche -- an advance uncommon in prehistoric North America. Modern man has established 31 industries based on oil and gas, to take advantage of geological riches untapped by ancient man. (1970)

Land for this courthouse square was donated by Louis Dumas, who laid out the townsite in 1891. One year later, Moore County was formally organized as a government, and in 1893 the county's first courthouse was built. The original courthouse was replaced by the current structure, built by C. S. Lambie and Company at a cost of $155,000. The brick building was occupied by county officials during the first week of August 1931. Both courthouses have held all county records and have served as focal points for the community and for the entire county. (1984)

Moore County is located in the north central part of the Panhandle of Texas, bordered by Sherman, Hutchinson, Potter, and Hartley counties. Dumas, the county seat, is located in the center of the county, at 101°55' west longitude and 35°50' north latitude, about forty-eight miles north of Amarillo. The area is named for Commodore Edwin Ward Moore , the commander of the Texas Navy during the Republic of Texas . Moore County occupies 909 square miles of the High Plains . The sandy and loam soils support abundant native grasses as well as various local crops such as wheat, corn, milo, and other grains. In general the terrain consists of nearly level prairies varied by the Canadian River brakes in the southeast and by Grapevine, Plum, South Palo Duro, North Palo Duro, and Big Blue creeks, which flow west to east and drain into the Canadian River. Part of Lake Meredith , a man-made lake on the Canadian River, is in the far southeastern corner of the county. Elevations in the county range from 2,900 to 3,700 feet above sea level. Average rainfall is 18.33 inches per year. The average minimum temperature is 20° F in January, and the average maximum is 93° in July. The growing season averages 185 days per year. Although early Spanish explorers and later American expeditions crossed the county by way of the Canadian River, the entire region remained the domain of Indians from prehistoric times until the 1870s. Following the Red River War of 1874, the Comanches and Kiowas were permanently removed to Indian Territory. In 1876 the Texas legislature formed Moore County from lands formerly assigned to Bexar County, and soon ranchers began moving into the area. Ranching dominated the local economy from the 1870s to the 1920s, when farming began to develop significantly. During 1877 George W. Littlefield established his famous LIT Ranch in southwestern Moore and eastern Hartley counties. Soon others followed. The LX Ranch , with headquarters in Potter County, had substantial Moore County acreage, as did the LS Ranch , which was headquartered in eastern Oldham County. Lesser stock-raising operations developed in the unclaimed ranges between these larger ranches. During the 1880s the local ranching economy stabilized, and the few stock raisers and farmers who lived in the county saw the need for a local government. The founding of the town of Dumas by Louis Dumas and the Panhandle Townsite Company in 1890 encouraged county organization. As a result, Moore County was organized with Dumas as the county seat following an election held on July 5, 1892. By 1900 there were fifty-seven ranches and farms in the county, encompassing about 115,500 acres, and the United States agricultural census reported 6,885 cattle and 300 sheep. Only 1,708 acres were classified as "improved," and only forty-two were devoted to corn, at that time the county's most important crop. The county population grew from 15 to 209 between 1890 and 1900. As early as the 1890s local stock raisers and a few farmers began to plant small amounts of corn, wheat, and grain sorghums. Farming continued on a limited scale until the years during and just after World War I , when worldwide demand led to a boom in farming. Thousands of acres of Moore County land were first cultivated between 1910 and 1920, as many of the old ranches began to sell their lands to newly arriving farmers. By 1920 there were ninety-three farms and ranches in the county; more than 11,000 acres were planted in sorghum, and another 2,733 acres were devoted to wheat. According to the U.S. census, there were 571 people living in the area at that time. As grain prices fell during the 1920s, cotton was introduced as a supplementary crop. By the end of the 1920s the local economy was based on a mix of cattle ranching and wheat and grain farming. In 1930 more than 24,600 acres were planted in wheat, and over 8,000 in barley. By that year 174 farms and ranches had been established, and the area's population

The Exell Helium Plant, in southern Moore County near the Potter county line, was the first World War II -vintage plant established in the Panhandle by the Federal Bureau of Mines. It came about as a result of the need for helium as a lifting gas in semirigid and nonrigid airships used to escort Allied shipping and in observation and barrage balloons. The plant began production on March 13, 1943, and was soon operating at 25 percent above its rated capacity. The facility, initially supervised by a few experienced operators from the bureau's Amarillo plant, became a model for efficiency. Housing was constructed nearby for over 1,000 employees. Railroad service was provided by the North Texas and Santa Fe line, which furnished specially made cars to pick up large cylinder tanks of compressed helium for shipment. Some of the helium extracted here figured prominently in the development of the first atomic bomb. Twice the Exell Plant was given the coveted Army-Navy "E" Award for excellence in the production of vital war materials. For several years a 125-foot guard tower, built out of an old oil derrick and containing a man-powered elevator, was a unique feature on the plant grounds. Exell was the only bureau plant not to be temporarily deactivated immediately after the war. By 1953 it was a leader in the production of helium for intercontinental missiles and the embryonic space program. The plant's production capacity was expanded to about 240 million cubic feet in 1956–57 and to more than 300 million cubic feet annually in 1960. In 1968 a new separation unit, the largest of its type in any bureau plant, was added to recover more than 98 percent of the helium from the Colorado Interstate Gas Company's feed gas; as a result, an additional 40 million cubic feet per year could be extracted. Two more units, one of which raises the purity of helium-gas mixture stored for conservation from 70 to about 95 percent, were installed to recover helium extracted from the Cliffside gas field in 1970. In 1980 new cryogenic purification and liquefication equipment and a pressure swing absorption unit were added to help supply the increased national demand. With about seventy full-time employees by 1986, the Exell Plant continued to be a major producer and supplier of both gaseous and liquefied helium for weather and medical research purposes and such federal government agencies as NASA. In 1994 the plant employed about 100 employees, and roughly 98 percent of all its production was for government use. Over the years equipment had been modernized for the purpose of meeting environmental standards, improving efficiency, and reducing operating costs. See also HELIUM PRODUCTION .