HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

Flynt Building

Tulia, Swisher County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Built 1909 of red brick with frosted glass above wood awning. First housed a confectionary. Has ornate marble counter and back bar. Exterior remodeled 1950. Is oldest retail firm in town at original location. First owner was E. W. Flynt (1888-1968). Recorded Texas Historical Landmark-1969

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Built in 1909 of red brick trimmed with frosted glass above a wooden awning, the Flynt Building opened its doors as a confectionary on the High Plains town of Tulia. Its ornate marble counter and back bar spoke to the small-town prosperity of the era, and it went on to become the oldest retail firm in town still standing at its original location. E. W. Flynt, its first owner, gave the building the name it carries.

Why it matters

Surviving early commercial buildings like this trace the growth of retail life in the young farming towns of the Texas Panhandle.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • ยท E. W. Flynt

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

J.O. Bass Blacksmith Shop

Tulia, TX

As settlers pushed onto the Panhandle plains after the Red River War, sprawling outfits like the 100,000-head J.A. Ranch depended on blacksmiths to forge the horseshoes, branding irons, and spurs that kept the work going. Georgia-born J.O. Bass opened his first shop in Quitaque in 1897 and moved to Tulia in 1902, crafting spurs so prized for durability that cowboys from Montana to Nevada โ€” and even film star Tom Mix โ€” placed orders. In 1914 his gold-and-silver inlaid "gal-leg" spurs won a metallurgy award at the Texas State Fair.

Swisher County Hospital

Tulia, TX

Before this hospital opened, Swisher County residents relied on local doctors or made the long trip to Amarillo for serious care. As the population grew in the 1920s, voters approved a 1926 bond to build a proper facility, completed two years later with twelve beds across two floors and a basement. A major 1946 addition kept it in service as the county hospital until a new building replaced it in 1969.

First Baptist Church of Claytonville

Claytonville, TX

Founded on the High Plains in 1891 as New Hope Baptist Church of Christ, this congregation was renamed Whitfield Baptist Church in 1912 and gathered a church, parsonage, and cabin at the Plains Baptist Assembly Grounds. As a new business community grew up around a cotton gin built in the 1950s by M. C. Clayton, the congregation moved to the paved highway and raised the town's first church building in 1962โ€“63, taking the Claytonville name in 1964.