November 26, 2006

(The above picture and caption and the following information are derived directly from Littlefield Lands, Colonization on the Texas Plains, 1912 – 1920, Number 8, the M. K. Brown Range Life Series, compiled and written by David B. Gracy II, grandson of Arthur P. Duggan and Governor Bill Daniel Professor in Archival Enterprise, University of Texas at Austin.)

The Settlers

"During the years between 1912 and 1920, the Littlefield Lands Company sold farm land and town lots to at least 360 separate persons or combinations of buyers. Why did these persons buy Littlefield lands? Where did they come from? What was their reaction to the country and how did those who settled on their purchases cope with their new environment?

"The most frequently stated reason for purchasing at Littlefield was the ‘call of the west’ – fresh and comparatively cheap land. The Mennonite buyers were excellent examples of this type of purchaser. Many were sons from Mennonite settlements on the Great Plains from Oklahoma to Canada. By 1914 little land was available around the older settlements, and what there was had risen in price. Wishing plots of land all their own, but having limited capital with which to purchase, these young men had to remove to less settled areas. Naturally, this situation was not confined to the Mennonites. Others having young families, or renting land in settled, higher-priced areas, found at Littlefield a place where they could afford farms of their own.

"A motive often given by purchasers from the northern Great Plains was the advantage of a milder climate. These men complained that during long winters their livestock consumed too much of the year’s crops. At Littlefield they hoped to find shorter winters and longer growing seasons in which to produce more crops.

"The list of purchasers reveals a number who bought for speculation or for investment, a distinction sometimes difficult to make. But the company tried to discourage purchase for quick resale, and a majority of buyers whose sales were closed intended to improve and/or settle on the land they purchased.

"The growth of the community of Littlefield attracted merchants and professional men. The B. B. Moultons came to operate the company hotel; Homer G. Tolbert to open a grain elevator; J. H. Moore and W. O. Richards to open a grocery store; J. P. Hatchett to become principal of the school; Neal A. Douglass to give the town a newspaper; Rube Beard to fulfill his ambition of having his own bank; J. H. Hall to open the first barber shop. It is interesting to note that a majority of those whose first purpose was to establish some kind of business came from the nearby Panhandle, Rolling Plains, or South Plains areas of Texas. Most of these men were young. Many had been out of college long enough to have accumulated small nest eggs and were ready to begin on their own. This, Littlefield residents – both farmers brought by ebullient agents and businessmen alike – were full of high hopes for the future and not easily discouraged.

"Late in 1912, not long after Arthur Duggan had reached the South Plains to begin his task of turning a cattle pasture into a community of farmers, W. G. Street consulted Arthur’s brother, Dr. Malone Duggan of San Antonio, about his health. Malone advised Street to seek a higher climate and told him of the infant Littlefield project. Street wrote for literature, then went to see for himself. Impressed, he sold his business in Mexia and moved with his brother to Littlefield, where they soon began construction of what would be the community’s first general merchandise store.

"Street was only one of several who moved to Littlefield for reasons of health. The C. W. Toews family left Langdon, North Dakota, in December, 1915, on account of the father’s lung trouble and rheumatism. Mrs. Vernie V. White abandoned Louisiana, ultimately for Littlefield, in search of a climate that would relieve her son’s asthma. Possibly the most desperate case was that of Ernest Martin of Lafayette, Indiana. Seriously ill with tuberculosis when he came in late 1917, ‘You never saw any person improve in health [and that in a space of two months] as he has done. He feels so good he wants to go home….I have…told him repeatedly his health is worth more than any thing else and that the thing for him to do is to go on that land and live out in the open…and by so doing save his life.’ (Arthur P. Duggan to J. C. Whicker, January 12, 1918, Whicker Papers)

It is quite probable that implied in a milder climate which many of the purchasers sought was a more healthful climate. Agents, like R. C. Rawlings, who proclaimed to prospectors that ‘this 3,600-foot altitude with its attendant glorious ozone, bright sunshine, pure exhilarating and health-giving air come near being the fountain of youth which men have so long sought,’ certainly kept in sharp focus this advantage of life in the sunny southwest. One student of the subject asserts that in the development of the southwest the search for health was second only to the desire for land as a factor in attracting permanent settlers.

"At least two men – T. A. Marchbanks and George W. Hargrove – moved to Littlefield early in 1913, both from Red Land, New Mexico, principally to provide their children the opportunity of attending a good school.

"The group of Mennonite settlers served to some non-Mennonites as the ‘drawing card’ Major Littlefield had hoped they would. To at least one buyer, ‘the fact of the German Mennonites having taken a large portion of this land is the most convincing proof of its being ‘The best Farm Land.’

"It is also interesting to observe that for quite a number of the Littlefield settlers, the move there was not their first. The G. W. Hargroves had gone from Arkansas to Oklahoma to New Mexico before moving to Littlefield. The D. F. Beisels had migrated from Russia to Manitoba, then to Oklahoma and back to Manitoba before buying at Littlefield. The E. G. Courtneys had proven a claim in Oklahoma while the B. F. Smith family had progressed west through Texas to Lubbock County. For the Mennonites, colonization was a part of their philosophy. The C. W. Toews family, to name only one, had moved with brethren from Russia to Mennonite settlements in Manitoba, North Dakota, and then Littlefield. This it appears that the frontier conditions which permitted men to feel free to move about in search of raw land still existed, though the land to which they went might no longer be free or even dirt cheap.

"To the 360 different buyers or combination of buyers iof Littlefield lands between 1912 and 1920, the economic motive – less expensive land, a milder climate which allowed a longer growing season, an opportunity to open a business, or speculation or investment – was far and away the most important reason for making a purchase, with health and educational opportunities or the blandishments of agents sometimes figuring as major or subsidiary considerations."