The history of the
Texas Panhandle area was all about the old west ranching industry. The largest and probably the most famous of the ranches in that area was the
XIT Ranch which covered over 3 million acres. The money raised by the state of Texas in selling this acreage was directly used to build the beautiful Texas state capitol building which is still the state capitol in Austin. Like several western U.S. ranches in the late 1800's, the XIT was essentially owned by British investors eager to take advantage of America's burgeoning ranch industry. In addition to the XIT were other significant ranches such as the JA. The Father of the Texas Panhandle,
Charles Goodnight, was the most influential name in Texas Panhandle history.
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| Armstrong County Museum |
If your western road trip vacation happens to take you toward the Amarillo Texas area, a good stop to put on your trip planner is
Claude Texas in Armstrong County, about twenty miles east of Amarillo on US Hwy 287. The Texas Panhandle region includes the top 26 counties of the state going from
the north-east corner of New Mexico all the way east, south of the
entire Oklahoma Panhandle. The Texas Panhandle comprises some 25,610 square miles. Be sure to visit the Armstrong County Museum when in Claude Texas. At he museum you'll see interesting exhibits of late 1800's and early 1900's artifacts, many of which were donated by longtime families of the county.
Adjacent to the Armstrong County Museum is the Gem Theater, another very historic site in Claude. The Gem was built in 1915. This of course were the very first years of the motion picture business. The Gem first opened as the "
Claudia" which actually allowed silent film goers to view movies from a sheltered building as opposed to a vacant lot outdoors. The Claudia served as both a silent picture theater and live vaudeville venue.
Claude and the TX Panhandle both have an interesting history tied to both the early ranching and railroad industries. Claude Texas in
Armstrong County can trace it's history all the way back to the Coronado Spanish expedition of 1540. Coronado passed through present day Claude and Tule Canyon just to the south. Armstrong County Texas was first formed in the year 1890, two years after the post office was built. The story is that the settlement of Washburn, a few miles to the west of Claude, was in contention to be the county seat. Votes total were tied between it and Claude and reportedly the tie breaking vote was cast by Charles Goodnight who voted in favor of Claude. Goodnight had settled just to the east of Claude in what today is Goodnight Texas, also on Hwy 287. Goodnight was co-owner at the time of the successful
JA Ranch.
The town of Claude was originally named Armstrong City. After the
Fort Worth and Denver Railroad came through the town's name was changed to Claude which was taken from Claude Ayers, the name of the engineer who brought the first train into town. This type of naming of towns along rail routes was fairly common. Early railroad towns such as Winslow Arizona, Seligman Arizona and Barstow California were named after people connected with the railroad. You'll find this common when touring the western United States.
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| Claude News printing equipment |
Charles Goodnight and the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad put Claude on the map. Claude was the home of America's oldest cowboy,
Tom Blasingame, who passed away in 1989 at the age of ninety-one. Claude Texas was also the site of the first
Boy Scouts of America troop west of the Mississippi. Claude was also the site used for the filming of the 1963 movie Hud. Films that had been shot in part in Armstrong County Texas also included an Indiana Jones movie and a film called Leap of Faith. In addition to these, even Charles Goodnight himself filmes a movie on his nearby JA Ranch by the name of Old Texas which showcased cowboy life.
You may also want to view our related article about
Charles Goodnight, the father of the Texas Panhandle.
The photo above is early printing equipment from the Claude News which began as the Claude Argus and merged with the Goodnight News in 1890.
(Photos from author's private collection)
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