W. P. Soash, Colonizer
Vealmoor, Howard County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Land promoter W. P. Soash (1877-1961) of Iowa came (1905) to Texas to sell parcels of XIT Ranch land. He founded the towns of Ware in Dallam County and Olton in Lamb County. He platted Soash (1 mi. N) on part of C. C. Slaughter's Long S Ranch in 1909 and brought trainloads of farmers from the East and Midwest to settle this area. The town flourished, but his proposed Gulf, Soash & Pacific Railroad failed when the Santa Fe Line was extended. A four-year drought soon caused Soash to decline. In the 1970s, only the shell of the bank building remained to mark the original townsite. (1978)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Iowa land promoter W. P. Soash came to Texas in 1905 to sell parcels of the vast XIT and Slaughter ranchlands, founding several towns and platting his namesake town of Soash in 1909. He brought trainloads of Eastern and Midwestern farmers to settle the arid plains, and for a time the town flourished on dreams of a railroad that never came. A four-year drought and the failure of his rail scheme doomed the settlement, leaving only the shell of a bank building to mark where a town once stood.
Why it matters
Soash is a classic tale of the West Texas land-boom era, when promoters sold the promise of the plains to hopeful farmers—and of the drought and broken railroad dreams that turned boomtowns into ghost towns.
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Related people
- · W. P. Soash
- · C. C. Slaughter
Related events
- · Settlement of the XIT Ranch lands
Themes & tags
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