Memphis, Texas

Hall County, in the southeastern Panhandle east of the High Plains, is bordered on the west by Briscoe County, on the south by Motley and Cottle counties, on the east by Childress County, and on the north by Donley and Collingsworth counties. It was named for Warren D. C. Hall , Republic of Texas secretary of war. The center point of the county is at 34°30' north latitude and 100°40' west longitude. Memphis, the county seat, is on U.S. Highway 287 about ninety miles southeast of Amarillo. The county comprises 885 square miles of rolling plains and broken terrain crossed by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, the Little Red River, and numerous lesser tributaries. The red and black sandy loam soils support a variety of native grasses in the rougher areas, and cotton, wheat, and grain sorghum crops in the tillable areas. The Prairie Dog Town Fork flows eastward across the central part of the county. The Little Red River joins it near the center of the county. The North Pease River briefly meanders into the southern part of the county, where the Wind River, Cottonwood Creek, T-Bar Canyon Creek, and Running Water Creek flow into it. Mulberry Creek begins in Donley County and joins the Prairie Dog Town Fork in the western part of Hall County. Mountain Creek, Rustlers Creek, and North Baylor Creek form in eastern Hall County and flow into the Prairie Dog Town Fork in Childress County. The elevation in Hall County ranges from 1,750 to 2,400 feet above sea level. The annual growing season averages 213 days a year. The average minimum temperature is 28° F in January, and the average maximum is 98° in July. An Apachean people occupied the Panhandle-Plains area in prehistoric times; in historic times the modern Apaches were pushed out of the region around 1700 by the Comanches, who subsequently ruled the Panhandle-Plains, including Hall County, until they were defeated in the Red River War of 1873–74 and removed to Indian Territory in 1875–76. In 1876 the Texas legislature formed Hall County from land formerly assigned to Bexar and Young Counties. With the Comanches removed from the scene, buffalo hunters moved across the plains, and between 1877 and 1882 the buffalo in Hall County were exterminated. The Rath Trail , which ran from Fort Griffin to Adobe Walls, Texas, and then to Dodge City, Kansas, extended through Hall County and was used by buffalo hunters until they left the area, after which it led ranchers and their cattle in. A number of major ranching operations moved into the area during the late 1870s and the 1880s. In 1876 Charles Goodnight and John Adair established the huge JA Ranch , which was headquartered in Armstrong County and spilled over into several surrounding counties, including Hall. The western part of the county, north of the Red River, was considered to be a part of the main JA Ranch into the early twentieth century. In 1878 Leigh R. Dyer established the Lazy F Ranch in eastern Briscoe and western Hall counties. Charles Goodnight had taken this range by 1879; by 1882 it operated as the Quitaque Ranch of the JA. The Diamond Tail Ranch of William R. Curtis also appeared in 1879, spread over northeast Hall County, and extended into Donley, Childress, and Collingsworth counties. In 1880, Thomas S. Bugbee and L. G. Coleman established the Shoe Bar Ranch to the east of the JA holdings in western Hall County; their ranch, operated informally for over a decade, became the Shoe Bar officially in 1891. In 1885 Orville H. Nelson started a small (twenty-section) ranch called the Bar 96 and began raising only blooded Herefords. The Continental Land and Cattle Company brought its Mill Iron Ranch to Hall County in 1888. This huge operation covered all of southern Hall County (east of the Quitaque Ranch) as well as large parts of Childress, Motley, Collingsworth, and Cottle counties. By 1890, seventy-nine ranches and farms had been established in the county and the population had increased to 703. Almost no crops were gr

Memphis, the county seat of Hall County, is at the junction of U.S. Highway 287, State Highway 256, and Farm Road 1547, in the northeastern part of the county. It had its beginning in 1889, when J. C. Montgomery purchased land for a townsite north of Salisbury on the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway. This land had been previously owned by W. H. Robertson, who had a dugout near Parker Creek. Montgomery and Robertson, with Rev. J. W. Brice and T. J. Woods, Jr., of Dallas, formed a townsite company and presented a plat early in January 1890. P. M. Kelly opened a law office. A rooming house (later the Memphis Hotel), a general store, a drugstore, and several residences were soon erected. For a time the new town was without a name. Several suggestions were submitted to federal postal authorities but with negative results. Finally, as the story goes, Reverend Brice, while in Austin, happened to see a letter addressed by accident to Memphis, Texas, rather than Tennessee, with the notation "no such town in Texas." The name was submitted and accepted, and a post office was established on September 12, 1890, with Robertson as postmaster. In the meantime Hall County was being organized. Memphis was engaged in a heated county seat battle with neighboring Salisbury and Lakeview. In the election Memphis won with a total of eighty-four votes. County officers were elected in June, and a school district was subsequently formed. Since Memphis was without a depot and trains did not stop there, certain citizens sought to remedy that situation by smearing the tracks with lye soap. A subsequent agreement was struck between town promoters and railroad officials. In 1891 a depot was built, and businesses were moved on wheels from Salisbury to the new county seat, where a courthouse of homemade bricks was constructed in 1892. Memphis thus enjoyed a boom period. Two saloons, a bank, numerous stores, blacksmith shops, and livery stables attested to its role as a shipping and trading center for area ranchers and farmers. The Missionary Baptist Church was organized in Memphis; its minister Rev. J. L. Pyle began Baptist congregations throughout the county. Telephone service was first installed in 1901. In June 1906 the town was incorporated with a mayor-council form of city government . The Memphis Cotton Oil Mill was established in 1907. Memphis had at one time or another several newspapers, including the Hall County Record (1889-93), the Hall County Herald (1890-1928), the Memphis Journal (1892-94), the Memphis Times (1896), the Memphis Leader (1897-99), the Hall County News (1897-1903), and the Memphis News (1928-29). The only newspaper extant in 1986, the Memphis Democrat , was launched in 1908 and went through a succession of owners. By the 1920s Memphis had a new brick-and-stone courthouse, modern utilities, a cotton compress, three hotels, brick school buildings, and a Carnegie Library. In 1922 the city's Morning Side addition was founded east of the tracks as a residential area for Blacks who labored in the cotton fields and mills. In 1935 E. M. Ewen and his wife formed the Hall County Old Settlers' Reunion (later the Hall County Picnic Association). Four years later they staged a rodeo as part of the annual two-day celebration. Since the Great Depression era Memphis has continued as a farm supply center. In 1986 the city had a cotton compress, gins, a grain elevator, two banks, eight churches, four public schools, a modern medical complex, two motels, several mercantile stores (including three wholesale houses), and a municipal airport northeast of town. In addition, Memphis is noted for its tree-lined streets, city park, two swimming pools, community center, and fifty blocks of brick paving laid in 1926. Brookhollow Country Club Lake, a private fishing lake with cabin sites, is six miles northeast of the city. Heritage Hall, which occupies the old First National Bank building on the square, contains local history displays and natural science ex

W. A. Johnson, journalist and lieutenant governor of Texas, was born of Scots-Irish parentage in Minnesota on August 28, 1862. He married Nora Sullivan on August 3, 1888; they had a daughter and a son. Johnson studied political science and journalism at the University of Texas. He lived in Denison before moving to Memphis, Texas, in 1890. In September 1891 he purchased the Hall County Herald from the widow of its founder, Eugene de Baurenfiend, who had been killed in a quarrel with county sheriff Pat Woffarth. Johnson enjoyed great success as editor of the Herald and soon became involved in both local and state politics. He represented the Twenty-ninth District in the Texas Senate from 1910 to 1918. As a senator he introduced a resolution to divide the state and name the new state Jefferson. He helped to impeach Gov. James E. Ferguson . In 1918 Johnson was elected lieutenant governor. He was a member of the Memphis chapter of the Knights of Pythias and a Presbyterian. He was president of the Texas Press Association , a regent of the University of Texas, and a member of the National Editorial Association and the National Geographic Society. He died at his home in Memphis on May 5, 1923. His widow and son, Earl, continued publication of the Hall County Herald until March 1928, when it was purchased by the Memphis Democrat .

In 1876, the Texas Legislature created Hall County, which organized in 1890 with Memphis as county seat. Two courthouses - a frame building facing the town aquare (1890-93) and a two-story brick building on this site (1893-1922) - preceded the current Classical Revival Building. During construction, commissioners court met in the Hall County National Bank. Architectural firm Page and Brother of Austin designed this three-story building with raised basement, built of reinforced concrete and structural clay tile with dark brick and cast stone veneer. All elevations have cast stone fluted composite order columns supporting entablatures and pediments at the entrances. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2008

Memphis’ oldest burial ground is the final resting place for many pioneer families and prominent community members. J.C. Montgomery, “Father of Memphis,” is buried in the oldest section. The cemetery started a few months before Memphis was selected as hall county seat, and was carved from the northeast corner of the town plat. The earliest marked grave is that of Ben F. Taylor, who died in March 1890. Among several notable graves is that of W. A. Johnson, who was editor of the Hall County Herald, state senator and Lt. Governor of Texas. The Fairview Cemetery Association, formed in 1993, cares for Old Fairview Cemetery as well as adjoining burial grounds. Designated Historic Texas Cemetery in 2012.

Established in 1890 under the leadership of the Rev. A. W. Rogers, this church began with thirteen members. This sanctuary, the second for the congregation, was completed in 1911, during the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. R. T. Caldwell. Built by member J. S. Cobb, it features neo-classical revival detailing in the use of arched windows and a domed roof. Interior furnishings include a large pipe organ originally, powered by water pressure. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1980