(This article was originally printed in the Leader-News Bicentennial Edition, Sunday, July 4, 1976.)

"He rode through town one cold day in November. He kept riding until he saw the Yellowhouse Ranch headquarters.

"He was just a young man of 22, but he felt he knew what he had to do. He had just graduated from Texas A&M, and he was sick. He thought he had tuberculosis, and he wanted to spend most of his time out in the open air of the South Plains. He wanted to be healthy again.

"The year was 1913, and the new, rich country held many opportunities for a young man with ambition. And this young cow hand had the ambition and the drive to succeed I whatever he attempted.

"The man was P. W. (Phelps) Walker, a great nephew of Major George Littlefield. The town which he rode through to get to the ranch was named after his great uncle, and Walker was to play just as significant a part in the growth of the West Texas town as he uncle had.

"He had come to the ranch with Mr. And Mrs. J. P. White, part owners of the Yellowhouse Ranch, and he began work immediately as a ranch hand.

"‘I was just around doing all the odd jobs that needed to be done. The ones no one else done. The ones no one else wanted to do,’ Walker recalled.

"He worked on the ranch for several years, realizing after a few months, that he was no longer ill. He was not bothered with the illness that had plagued him all through his college days.

"World War I broke out, and the now experienced cow hand joined the Army. He served two years in the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps. The end of the war brought Walker back to Littlefield, with little knowledge as to what he wanted to do.

"‘I lived at the Littlefield Hotel, and one day I made H. G. Tolbert an offer on his grain company, and he said okay,’ Walker explained.

"Tolbert had started the company in May of 1916, and Walker bought the business in December of 1919.

"The college graduate who had served as a ranch hand and had had two years in the Army, had a great deal of work to do. His newly acquired elevator had a 10-car capacity, and he had the first horse and buggy dump in the area.

"Times were hard for the new businessman.

"‘I remember that first year very well. We only received between three and four carloads of grain and most of that was Sudan (the grain - not the town). The grainmen back in 1919 had a tough, hard row to hoe and several starved out in a year or two,’ Walker stated.

"‘Why there is more grain being fed every day now, just on the South Plains, than I received in a whole year some years,’ he continued.

"To say there was not much grain produced in 1919 would be an understatement. To quote Walker, ‘When I started if a farmer produced 1,400 pounds of grain to the acre, it was outstanding.’

"In 1920 Walker was asked to manage the First National Bank.

"‘The owners asked me to run it, but after six months they sold the bank to another group,’ he explained.

"Walker’s elevator put the first bushel of South Plains grain into the government loan in 1944. Before grain got on the highly competitive basis that it is today, his elevator handled as much as 1,200 car-loads of grain a year.

"An $85,000 fire swept the entire grain operation on March 8, 1950, putting Walker out of business for a short time. Walker had cancelled his insurance on the elevator just 22 days before the fire, and the fire almost ruined him.

"Frank James, well-known pioneer resident of Littlefield, worked in the elevator from the time Walker bought it until James’ death in 1961.

"Throughout 43 years in the fresh air of West Texas, Walker had no trouble with the illness that brought him here in 1913. In 1959, his illness reoccurred, and this time it was diagnosed as asthma.

"The man who came to Littlefield fresh out of school ready to prove himself, did prove himself. He owned and operated a grain elevator every day for 43 years, and finally he had to give it up. In November of 1962, P. W. Walker sold his interest in the business to the Farmers’ Grain Company, Inc., composed of a group of local farmers and businessmen.

"‘It has been very interesting for me to watch the many advances take place in the grain industry. From the horse and buggy, 1,400 pounds per acre yields and hand heading, down to today’s modern transportation, 8,000 pound per acre yields and the self propelled combine,’ Walker said.

"‘I hated getting out of the business worse than anything I could think of, but my health would not permit me to be as active as I like,’ he concluded.

"An active business life came to an end for P. W. Walker in 1962. But his plans for the future included the buying and selling of the number two agricultural crop on the plains – grain."