Name: Barstow, Texas
Address: Barstow, TX

The Salt That Killed a Town RoadyGoat

Barstow's failure was an engineering and hydrology problem. The town was built on an irrigation system that diverted water from the Pecos River. Here's the science of why that failed. All river water carries dissolved mineral salts, but the Pecos is naturally saltier than most because of the regional geology. Spread that water on a field in a hot, dry climate and the water evaporates while the salt stays behind. For a while it worked beautifully—Barstow grapes even won recognition at the 1904 World's Fair. Then in 1904 an earthen dam on the rain-swollen Pecos burst, and the floodwaters drove soil salinity up sharply, ruining many of the farms outright. Droughts in 1907 and 1910 finished the job. The soil went sterile. The very system designed to create an agricultural paradise helped leave behind a salt flat, and the population fell from more than twelve hundred in 1910 to about four hundred ninety by 1925. It's a textbook case of an engineering solution failing because it didn't account for local chemistry and climate.

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The War for the Courthouse RoadyGoat

Imagine a three-story courthouse of red sandstone rising out of the desert, right here in Barstow. It was real. When Ward County was organized in 1892, brand-new Barstow was named the county seat, and the next year the county put up that sandstone building — the largest thing for miles, a bold statement of permanence and power. For nearly half a century, Barstow was the center of county government. But Barstow's irrigated farming fortunes failed after its dam gave way, while Monahans, sitting on a railroad and a growing oil economy, saw its chance. On May 10, 1938, the county voted again. The campaign was bitter, but Monahans won, and the result was upheld in 1939 when the records finally moved. The courthouse came down soon after. Losing it wasn't just a political defeat; it was the moment the town's heart was ripped out.

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Barstow, TX RoadyGoat

In 1892, George E. Barstow, a leading expert on irrigation, organized the city that bears his name. That same year, Barstow was elected as the First Ward County Seat. A courthouse was built in 1893, and by 1900, the city's population had grown to over 1,000 due to Barstow's recruiting efforts. The city's agricultural success was recognized when it won a Silver Medal for its grapes at the 1904 World's Fair. However, the Pecos River Dam broke in 1904, leading to a drought that made farming impossible by 1918, and the population dropped to 468 by 1930.

Barstow, George Eames

1889

George Eames Barstow, capitalist and irrigation pioneer, was born on November 19, 1849, in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Amos Chafee and Emeline (Mumford) Eames. He was educated at the public school and at Mowry and Goff's English and Classical School in Providence. The son of a manufacturer and banker, Barstow himself began a business career at the age of seventeen. He eventually founded, financed, or organized five worsted and paper industries in Rhode Island. He became a member of the Providence school board at the age of twenty-one and served for fourteen years. He also served four years on the Providence common council and three terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He married Clara Drew Symonds on October 19, 1871, and they had nine children. For a number of years Barstow was involved in irrigation projects and in the draining of swamp lands. His attention turned to the Pecos valley in Texas after the state legislature passed an act in March 1889 to encourage the development of irrigation in West Texas. The Pioneer Canal Company, with Barstow as treasurer, was chartered on July 6, 1889. On September 30, 1889, Pioneer took over the Ward County Irrigation Company. Barstow served as president of at least one of the Pioneer Canal Company's later incarnations, the Pecos Valley Land and Irrigation Company. An ad for the latter company, with a picture of Barstow as president, appeared in a 1909 issue of Cosmopolitan . In 1891 Barstow joined other land developers in a project to promote a town on the Texas and Pacific Railway in western Ward County. The townsite, laid out in 1891, was deeded by Mr. and Mrs. B. K. Brant and O. F. Brant to the Barstow Improvement Company in 1892. Disagreement surfaced early over a name for the town, but by 1895 the community had taken the name of Barstow. Barstow himself moved to Barstow in 1904 from New York City. He also reportedly participated in organizing other irrigation and drainage systems throughout the West. He was president of the National Drainage Congress in 1907–08 and of the Eleventh International Irrigation Congress in 1908–09. He also served as vice president of the Texas Conservation Commission and president of the West Texas Reclamation Association. He was a member of the Conference of Governors in 1908, a delegate to the World Court Congress in Cleveland in 1915, a life director of Euphrates College (Turkey), a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (London), a member and fellow of the Society of Applied Psychology (San Francisco), a member of the committee on conferences of the American Agricultural Association, and a member of the advisory committee of the University Forum (New York). He was also a member of the American Society of International Law, the National Institute of Social Sciences, the Southern Sociological Congress, the National Child Labor Committee, the National Civic Federation, the American Institute of Civics, the Academy of Political Science, the American Society of Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, the International Peace Forum, the League to Enforce Peace, the International World Conscience Society (Rome), the Navy League, the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the New York Museum of Natural History. He was also a councilor of the World's Purity Congress. In addition, Barstow wrote pamphlets on such varied subjects as immigration, cooperatives, Sino-Japanese relations, and Americanism. He was a Republican and attended the Congregational church in Providence and the Methodist church in Barstow. He died in Barstow on April 30, 1924, and was buried in the Barstow Cemetery.

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Early Public Library, Vicinity of

1890

The Republic of Texas set a cultural example by legislation for a state library in 1839. In 1874 cities were authorized to establish public libraries, but most were privately financed. A library near here about 1890 was gift of Miss Anna Gould, a daughter of railroad magnate Jay Gould, when she was visiting the stone quarry 4.5 miles east. She established the library the first in Ward County, which was not organized until 1892 for families near the quarry. Most Texas counties now have free public libraries, since a 1919 law granted this privilege.

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Ward County Bank, Old

1901

C. E. Pierce, an early advocate of irrigated agricultural lands for the Pecos River valley, had this building constructed in 1901 to house Ward County's first bank. Never incorporated, the bank lost money due to area crop failures and closed in 1907. Constructed of red sandstone from the nearby Barstow Quarry, the building exhibits influences of the Romanesque revival style and features an interesting corner entrance. (Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1962.)

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Site of First Ward County Courthouse

1893

A Three-story red sandstone courthouse with a domed cupola was constructed here in 1893, one year after Barstow was elected first Ward County seat. The first elected officials to serve in the courthouse were R. D. Gage, co. judge; S. D. McWhorter, co. & dist. clerk; W. M. Ware, sheriff & tax collector; John W. Phillips, co. attorney; S. H. Parker, tax assessor; J. B. Carson, surveyor; J. J. Walker, treas.; Pat Wheat, Comm. No. 1; W. C. Carson, Comm. No. 2; Pat Duracke, Comm. No. 3; and A. D. Irvin, Comm. No. 4. The landmark was razed soon after the county seat moved to Monahans in 1938. All that remains is a cornerstone.

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Pyote Air Force Station

1942

Pyote Air Force Station (formerly Pyote Army Air Field) was established as a bombardment crew training base during World War II and nicknamed "Rattlesnake Bomber Base" by the servicemen. It was on 2,745 acres of University of Texas land a mile southwest of the town of Pyote, twenty miles west of Monahans and just south of U.S. Highway 80. Two giant runways, each over 1½ miles long and 150 feet wide, and a taxiway formed a triangle on the flat, arid land. Construction of the facilities, including five large hangars, shops, warehouses, and living quarters, began on September 5, 1942. The first troops were assigned within a month, well before the base was completed. Troops and civilian technicians poured in, and the population of the base grew steadily to a peak of over 6,500 in October 1944. Within four months of its opening, the base had become the largest bomber installation in the country. Despite morale problems caused by isolation and the shortage of off-base recreation and of dependents' housing, Pyote achieved a distinguished record in molding inexperienced individuals into effective bomber crews. After the arrival of the famed Nineteenth Bombardment Group on New Year's Day, 1943, and the ceremonial inauguration of its training program on January 5, Pyote rapidly turned out crews proficient in hitting targets from the B-17 Flying Fortress until the summer of 1944, when it was switched to the B-29 Superfortress. The Nineteenth was the first air force unit to bomb Japanese targets; it flew to Pyote directly from combat in the Pacific. The base was redesignated the Nineteenth Combat Crew Training School late in 1943 and then replaced on March 30, 1944, by the 236th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Combat Crew Training School). In June 1945 the base claimed records for the most B-29 training hours flown by any base in a single month (7,396), in a week (1,873), and in a day (321). Control of Pyote was transferred from the Second Air Force to the San Antonio Air Technical Service Command on November 15, 1945, at the end of the war, and the base became an aircraft-storage depot. At its peak in 1948 the depot, which was maintained by the 4141st Army Air Forces Base Unit, housed 2,042 stored planes, mostly B-29s and B-17s, but including B-25s, A-26s, C-47s, P-63s, P-51s, AT-7s, L-5s, and L-4s. Best known of all was the Enola Gay , from which the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; this famous plane was flown to Washington, D.C., on December 2, 1953, for preservation at National Air and Space Museum. After the Korean War, all of the planes at Pyote were moved or scrapped, and most activity on the base ceased. For a few years in the 1950s and 1960s, the 697th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, an Air Defense Command unit, operated a radar site on the base. Following the deactivation of the site in 1966, base housing was taken over by the West Texas Children's Home, and the land and remaining buildings reverted to the University of Texas. By 1985 a single large hangar and slowly deteriorating runways and taxiways were all that marked the once-busy bomber base.

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Barstow, Texas

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History of Barstow

The Salt That Killed a Town RoadyGoat

The War for the Courthouse RoadyGoat

Barstow, TX RoadyGoat

Barstow, George Eames

Early Public Library, Vicinity of

Ward County Bank, Old

Site of First Ward County Courthouse

Pyote Air Force Station

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