New Moore
O'Donnell, Lynn County, Texas
Marker Inscription
New Moore was a rural farming community established on the site of the Singleton Slash L Ranch in 1924. Samuel F. Singleton came to Texas in the 1870s. He met Marion Virgil ‘Pap’ Brownfield and they settled sixteen sections of land along the present-day Lynn County/Terry County line in 1896. Brownfield and Singleton eventually split, and Singleton retained the Lynn County portion. In 1898, Singleton purchased the thirty-section Slash L Ranch. He now had 50 sections of land that he ranched. When Singleton died in 1924 his family put up the ranch for sale and W. McCarty Moore from Dallas bought 17,000 acres from the Singletons. He divided the land into quarter sections and sold it to families looking for cheap land. The old Singleton headquarters home and stock pens were purchased by Frank Rogers and this location became known as “New Moore.” In 1924, McCarty more built the Slash L School on the west side of the land known as the Marshall Place, a one-room structure without water or electricity. A new schoolhouse was later authorized and built at New Moore, across from the Frank Rogers home. This was called the New Moore School. In 1928, a newer modern brick school building was built one mile north of New Moore. The social life of New Moore residents revolved around the school, the general store, the church and the gin. The Great Depression was followed by the Dust Bowl of the thirties and finally the horrible drought of 1953 which left the families of the community struggling. The final blow to the community was the closing of the New Moore School in 1953. Families started leaving New Moore to move to urban areas, close to schools, churches and commerce.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
New Moore rose in 1924 on the old Singleton Slash L Ranch, after a Dallas buyer carved 17,000 acres into quarter sections and sold them cheap to families hungry for land. Life in the little farming community turned on its schools, general store, church, and cotton gin, but the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the crushing drought of 1953 wore the settlers down. When the New Moore School closed that same year, families drifted toward the cities and the community faded away.
Why it matters
New Moore's brief life and quiet death trace the whole arc of the South Plains land boom and the Dust Bowl that emptied so many hopeful farming towns across the American West.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Samuel F. Singleton
- · W. McCarty Moore
- · Frank Rogers
Related events
- · Dust Bowl
- · Drought of 1953
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gomez Baptist Church
Brownfield, TX
On August 3, 1903, nine worshippers gathered under a wagon-sheet tent to organize this Baptist church, led by the Rev. J. R. Miller and meeting monthly in the Gomez schoolhouse. A one-room sanctuary built in 1909 was later moved when the town of Gomez itself was relocated for highway construction, and a larger church rose in 1936. The congregation gained its first full-time pastor by 1942 but was disbanded in 1992, its fortunes tied to the fading town of Gomez.
Site of Primrose School
Ropesville, TX
When homesteaders began breaking the Hockley County prairie in 1902, their growing families soon needed a school. In 1909 parents hauled lumber roughly a hundred miles by wagon from Big Spring, donated their labor, and raised a one-room schoolhouse named Primrose for a wild prairie flower. Classes opened that December for children of a handful of pioneer families, and the building doubled as polling place, church, and meeting hall until the nearby town of Ropesville drew the community away.
Monterey High School
Lubbock, TX
Monterey High School opened in 1955, taking its name from one of the two original townsites platted for Lubbock. That earlier Monterey was founded in present-day northwest Lubbock by W. E. Rayner in 1890, but in a notable 1891 compromise Rayner joined forces with the rival townsite's promoters to establish Lubbock in its current location. The school thus carries forward the name of a would-be town that merged into the city instead.
Isham and Texana Tubbs House
Lubbock, TX
Isham and Texana Tubbs married in Kaufman County in 1877 and moved to the Monterey area of Lubbock County around 1890, when the region was just being settled. Isham helped found the local school board and a Methodist congregation, and in 1907–08 he hauled East Texas lumber in by rail and wagon to build this Queen Anne home, modeled on a magazine sketch his wife admired. Its two separate living spaces sheltered the family under one roof.