Parmer County
Farwell, Parmer County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created August 21, 1876, from Bexar County. Named for Martin Parmer ("The Ringtailed Panther"), signer of Texas Declaration of Independence. Organized May 7, 1907. The XIT Ranch, extending across nine counties, initially owned most of Parmer. The Capitol Syndicate, which built Texas' Capitol, received in payment 3,050,000 acres of land and established the XIT in 1885. By 1890, population of the county was only 70. But, with syndicate land sales, buyers came on the new railroad in 1904. Brisk settlement began, with many small farms. Farwell is the county seat. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Parmer County was created in 1876 and named for Martin Parmer, the 'Ringtailed Panther' who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Most of its land was first held by the vast XIT Ranch, granted to the Capitol Syndicate in payment for building the Texas Capitol, and in 1890 the county's population numbered only 70. When the railroad arrived in 1904 and the syndicate began selling land, settlers streamed in to carve out small farms, and Farwell became the county seat.
Why it matters
Parmer County's leap from empty ranchland to farm country captures the breakup of Texas's giant cattle empires and the railroad-driven settlement of the High Plains.
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Related people
- · Martin Parmer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bovina
Bovina, TX
Bovina began as the Hay Hook Line Camp of the legendary XIT Ranch, the three-million-acre spread Texas granted in payment for building its state capitol. When the Pecos & Northern Texas Railroad reached the site in 1898, cattle poured onto rail cars bound for eastern markets, and for a time this was one of the largest shipping points in the nation — cowhands called it "Bull Town" before the town chose the name Bovina in 1899. From a frontier line camp it grew into the market center of a rich irrigated-farming county.
Site of Parmerton
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Parmerton began as Parmer Switch on the Pecos & Northern Texas Railroad in 1898 and grew when a model farm using the Campbell dry-farming method took root there in 1906. A townsite company laid out streets in 1907, and Parmerton briefly became the county seat with its own post office. But when nearby Farwell won the county seat later that year, residents literally packed up and moved their houses away, leaving only the railroad switch to mark the spot.
Old Hurley
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Old Hurley was born of optimism in 1907, promoted by a land company that surveyed a townsite, plowed furrows to mark future streets, and named it for New Mexico political figure Patrick J. Hurley. A store, hotel, livery, post office, church, and school soon followed as settlers arrived. But when the railroad bypassed the town in 1913 and Muleshoe won the county seat in 1918, Hurley withered and died.
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