Growing Up In Small Town America Part 7

 WIDE OPEN SPACES

I grew up in Wilbarger County which was organized as a county in 1881 which was only 75 years before I was born there. This western history impacted my formative years because I was raised in a progressive small community which was filled with its own, fairly current, rich history. It became a part of who I am. My great- grandparents were born in the late 1870s and 1880s and my grandparents were born in very early 1900s; most all of them were born in the early stages of Texas’s development. Most of the Texas counties to the west of Vernon were not even formed. The railroad came through in 1886 and much of our existence still revolved around the train in the 50s. Vernon was also on the historic Western Trail at Doan’s Crossing. Still today, Doan’s is celebrated each year with a Doan’s Crossing Picnic. In the early 1960s, Paula and Bryan were selected to participate in this historic event. Paula was a princess (I have some adorable pictures of her) and Bryan was part of a square dancing group that performed. Quanah Parker and the Comanche Indians were common place in our dialogue. The first newspaper was published in 1889, and in a little over 50 years my daddy would own that newspaper. Cattle, sheep, hogs were important to the economy, but when ranchers suffered losses in the 1890s, crop farming became well established in the area, including corn, wheat, oats, and eventually cotton. Cotton became king in the 1920s during the Great Depression, a time that my parents grew up in.  Cotton remained significant, but the oil industry increased and helped offset the losses.

My Pappy, J.C.Jones (Mother’s daddy) grew wheat and cotton, and also hogs. He was a Christian man, a lay minister and a deacon. He was named Conservation Farmer the year before he died.