Bledsoe Santa Fe Depot
Lubbock, Lubbock County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A relic from one of America's last frontiers. Built in 1925 on range land of newly organized Cochran County, at Bledsoe, this structure not only served its purpose as a railroad station, but was a meeting hall for churches and social groups. Sheepherders and cowboys would bed down on its floor when detained at the station in shipping season. Phased out of service by 1966, structure was moved 70 miles to be preserved by Gene Hemmle. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1925 on the newly organized range land of Cochran County, this Santa Fe depot at Bledsoe was far more than a railroad station—it doubled as a meeting hall for churches and clubs, and sheepherders and cowboys bedded down on its floor during shipping season. Rail service faded by 1966, and the structure was moved seventy miles to be preserved. It survives as a relic of one of America's last settled frontiers.
Why it matters
The depot captures the final chapter of American frontier settlement, when the railroad brought commerce and community to the remote West Texas plains.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Gene Hemmle
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mackenzie Scout Trail
Lubbock, TX
In the early 1870s the U.S. Army cut this scouting route across the West Texas plains, part of the campaigns that opened the Llano Estacado to outside travel. After the soldiers came the buffalo hunters of the late 1870s, and then the cattlemen who drove herds across the open range until barbed wire fenced it in. The granite block itself carries a poignant twist: it was taken from the graveyard wall of a South Carolina woman, Nancy Anderson, and set here by her descendants in the D.A.R.
Ropesville Cemetery
Ropesville, TX
Ropesville owes its existence to a 1917 deal in which rancher I.L. Ellwood traded 85 acres to the Santa Fe railroad for a depot on his Spade Ranch, complete with the rope corrals that gave the town its name. In its early years there was no local cemetery, so the dead had to be carried to distant towns — until injured rancher Lee Cowan asked in 1933 to be buried on a knoll west of town, prompting Ellwood to donate an acre and create Ropesville Cemetery. A cemetery association soon formed, and the grounds grew over the following decades.
Town of Abernathy
Abernathy, TX
Abernathy sprang up in 1909 when the Santa Fe Railroad pushed south from Plainview toward Lubbock, and it was named for Monroe G. Abernathy, treasurer of the company that promoted the townsite. It thrived as a cattle railhead, absorbing buildings moved from the vanished town of Bartonsite, and centered its civic life on the "Old Tabernacle" from 1918 to 1947. In its earliest days, before roads existed, plowed furrows guided visitors to the town doctor's house.
Englewood Cemetery
Slaton, TX
Representing the Santa Fe Railroad, W.B. Storey, Jr. bought the future townsite of Slaton on April 15, 1911, with plans for a roundhouse, switch lines, depot, and Harvey House that would make it a hub of West Texas rail traffic. Rail workers and settlers filled the town so quickly that it incorporated in 1912, the same year residents opened this cemetery with the burial of an infant. Among its thousands of graves are unmarked burials in a potter's field and veterans of wars dating to the Civil War.