Julian M. Bassett
Crosbyton, Crosby County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Dec. 4, 1873 - Dec. 29, 1947) New York native Julian Marcus Bassett migrated to Texas with his parents in 1882. A rancher and businessman, he helped establish the C. B. Livestock Company. In order to promote company land sales in the area, Bassett had the townsite of Crosbyton platted in 1907. He later organized construction of the Crosbyton South Plains Rail Line which helped the town become the county seat in 1911. This site was donated by Bassett for use as a public cemetery. Recorded - 1980.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the early 1900s the flat, treeless expanse of the Texas South Plains was being carved into ranches and townsites as promoters raced to attract buyers and rail connections. Julian M. Bassett, a New York-born son of Texas migrants, helped run the C. B. Livestock Company and, to spur land sales, had the townsite of Crosbyton platted in 1907. His backing of the Crosbyton South Plains Rail Line helped the young town win the county seat in 1911, and he set aside this ground as a public cemetery.
Why it matters
Bassett embodies the developer-rancher who turned raw High Plains rangeland into permanent communities, showing how private land promotion and short-line railroads together built the map of West Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- ¡ Julian Marcus Bassett
Related events
- ¡ Platting of Crosbyton (1907)
- ¡ Crosbyton South Plains Rail Line
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Crosbyton
Crosbyton, TX
Crosbyton sprang up in 1908 on the ranch lands of the C.B. Livestock Company, which deliberately built a school, store, railroad, and inn to lure homesteaders onto the West Texas plains. The strategy worked: by 1911 the town claimed a thousand residents and the county seat. Once open range, the surrounding country became rich irrigated farmland.
Crosby County Courthouses
Crosbyton, TX
Crosby County's seat wandered across the South Plains before settling down. It began in 1879 at Estacado, a Quaker colony where county offices worked out of dugouts, shacks, and wagons until the first courthouse rose in 1888. The seat jumped to Emma in 1890, then to Crosbyton after the Crosbyton-South Plains Railroad bypassed Emma in 1910 â and the present courthouse followed in 1914.
City of Ralls
Ralls, TX
Ralls owes its existence to John R. Ralls, a Georgia-born settler who moved West in the 1880s and gave land for a townsite, free lots for its churches, acreage for its school, and even offered 2,000 acres to lure Texas Technological College. After settling litigation with a rival townsite company, he secured a railroad station in 1916, the guarantee of the town's survival. The city was incorporated in 1922, just after its founder's death.
John R. Ralls Building
Ralls, TX
When the railroad bypassed nearby Emma and cut instead across John R. Ralls's land, he founded a new town in its place and donated ground for homesites, the square, the school, and every church. This bank building was the grandest of the two-plus blocks of business houses he raised between 1915 and 1919 as the town took shape.