Name: Ralls, Texas
Address: Ralls, TX

Ralls, TX RoadyGoat

Ralls, Texas, might seem like just another small town on the high plains, but it's got stories etched into its very soil. You can feel it in the air, that crispness at 3,077 feet, a little different than down in Lubbock.

Ralls, TX RoadyGoat

Ralls is more than just a dot on the West Texas map. It's a place carved out of the high plains, sitting up here at over 3,000 feet where the air feels a little cleaner. You can feel the history in the quiet of the streets, a history that started taking shape when the railroad finally pushed through, turning this into a real agricultural center. Before that, it was just wide-open country. Folks started calling it Ralls after the banker who helped get things going, and incorporated it as a town back in the early 1900s. Cotton became king, and still is, really. There have been hard times, of course. That fire in '25 that swept through downtown was a killer. But people rebuilt, brick by brick, and kept going. It’s a testament to the grit you find out here. And even though it's a small town, Ralls has its claims to fame. And you can’t forget about the football rivalry with the other Crosby County schools – that’s serious business. Evenings, you might hear tales of a ghostly hitchhiker out on Highway 62/82, but that's just West Texas storytelling. More than anything, Ralls is about community, about knowing your neighbors, and about that Red Raider pride that runs deep in everyone around here.

Ralls, TX RoadyGoat

Ralls, Texas—it's a name that might not ring a bell for most, but it carries the weight of history and the promise of West Texas resilience. Back at the start of the twentieth century, when the railroad was snaking its way across the plains, towns sprung up like wildflowers after a rain. This one was named for J.R. Ralls, a banker whose support was vital in getting the town off the ground. It's a practical name, a tribute to someone who invested in the future. You can almost picture the town founders, dusty and determined, choosing a name that reflected their ambition and gratitude. That's the spirit of Ralls, really—grounded and forward-looking. Even when a terrible fire swept through downtown in 1925, gutting so much of what they had built, the community rebuilt. They knew what they had was worth saving. Today, you can still feel that sense of connection, of shared history, in the air. It's a quiet place, where the fields stretch out to the horizon and the legacy of cotton farming runs deep. But it does tell you that this is a place rooted in something real.

Walker, William Marvin [Billy]

1929

William Marvin Walker, guitar player and singer, known as “The Tall Texan” because of his physical stature, was born on January 14, 1929, in Ralls, Texas, a ranching community located thirty miles east of Lubbock. After his mother’s death when Billy was only four, his father, unable to care for eight children, placed young Billy and two of his brothers in an orphanage. When Billy was eleven they went to live with their father after he had remarried. As a child Walker was inspired to become a musician after hearing fellow Texan Gene Autry play. In 1942 Walker’s family moved to Clovis, New Mexico, where in 1944 the fifteen-year-old won a music contest, earning him an opportunity to play on local radio station KICA. Eventually Walker became a regular host on KICA radio and remained with the station until his graduation from high school in 1946. At that point he formed a country band that toured throughout the Southwest. Walker soon caught the attention of promoters in Dallas who asked him to appear on the popular Big D Jamboree radio program on KRLD in 1949. Upon joining the Big D Jamboree , Walker was given the stage name “The Traveling Texan.” The show’s promoters also created a fictional identity for Walker as a mysterious crooner who wore a mask similar to the Lone Ranger as a way to keep his identity hidden from his wealthy parents. This fictional stage character proved popular with audiences, and Walker kept it as part of his performance during the early years of his career. Ironically he was eventually unmasked after a passerby mistakenly thought that Walker was a bank robber and called the police. Early on in his career Walker befriended Hank Williams. In the early 1950s the two were hired to promote a health tonic on the Hadacol Caravan tour. They sold what they advertised as a “healing tonic,” which Walker later admitted derived its “curative” powers primarily from alcohol. Walker recorded for Capitol Records from 1949 to 1951, and in 1951 he began a longtime association with Columbia. He joined the famed Louisiana Hayride on KWKH in Shreveport and later began performing in the Ozark Jubilee out of Springfield, Missouri. In 1954 he charted his first hit, “Thank You For Calling.” He also received awards from BMI and Cash Box . While touring in Memphis that same year, Walker met a young musician named Elvis Presley who had been added to the Hayride at the last minute. Walker was so impressed with the musician’s charisma and youthful energy that he asked Presley to join him on the Hayride . Together, Walker, Presley, and Tillman Franks toured West Texas in 1955. Walker’s popularity grew, and in 1960 he was invited to join Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry . While working on the Opry , Walker met and befriended a young Willie Nelson who had moved from Texas to Nashville to try and build a career in the music business. Walker was the first to record Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and he passed Nelson’s song “Crazy” to Patsy Cline. In 1962 Walker released the first of several Top 10 hits—“Charlie’s Shoes,” which he followed with “Willie the Weeper.” On March 5, 1963, he narrowly escaped the tragic plane crash that claimed several lives, including Patsy Cline, when friend Hawkshaw Hawkins took his place on the private plane. Walker instead had used Hawkins’s commercial airline ticket to return to Nashville. He continued to produce hit songs from the 1960s to the 1980s, including “Cross the Brazos at Waco” (1964), “A Million to One” (1966), and “Sing Me a Love Song to Baby” (1972). During his career Walker counted sixty-five records on the country charts, including thirty-two Top 10 hits and six Number 1 hits. He toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, had a syndicated television show in the 1970s, and was an active member of the Grand Ole Opry for nearly fifty years. He also had his own Tall Texan label. Billy Walker had four daughters by his first wife Sylvia Smith. On May 21, 2006, the seventy-seven-year

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Ralls, John Robinson

1910

John Robinson Ralls, rancher, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, was born in Monroe County, Georgia, on November 13, 1862, the eldest son of John Robinson and Fannie Minnie (Bird) Ralls. While helping his mother operate a 1,000-acre Georgia plantation after his father's death in 1880, Ralls obtained only a few months of formal education at an Atlanta college. In 1890 he moved to Bowie, Texas, and in the following years he was a merchant in Belcherville, Terrell, and finally in Ryan, Oklahoma. In 1906 he traded the Ryan store for a 10,000-acre ranch in Crosby County, Texas. In 1910 a short-line railroad was built through his ranch to Crosbyton, bypassing the county seat at Emma. Ralls laid out a town (named after himself) on the right-of-way to serve the residents of Emma. He divided his ranch into quarter-section tracts for sale to prospective farmers, built homes and business houses in the town, and donated land for schools and churches there. He later built an opera house that locals boasted was one of the finest west of Fort Worth. In 1906 he married Dollie M. Martin, from whom he was divorced in 1920. He was a Presbyterian and thirty-second-degree Mason. He died on October 3, 1921, and was buried in Ralls.

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Emma

1891

In the spring of 1891, merchants R.L. Stringfellow and H.E. Hume of nearby Estacado founded the town of Emma, named in honor of Stringfellow's future wife, Emma Savior (or Sevall). The two men organized a general store and laid out the townsite, which opened with a picnic and town lots sale. In the fall of that year, the county seat was moved from Estacado to Emma; residents dismantled the Estacado courthouse and moved it piece by piece to its new site on Emma's town square. Along with the courthouse came many of Estacado's businesses, including the Crosby County News, edited by J.W. Murray. Land speculators, including Julian Bassett of C.B. Livestock Co. and John R. Ralls, founder of the town of Ralls, also came to the area. During the next two decades, Emma experienced a boom. By 1910, the town had several hundred residents, supporting a post office, the Meyer Hotel and a school. That year, however, the South Plains Railroad bypassed the community by approximately five miles, traveling from Lubbock to Crosbyton. Later, Ralls became an additional stop along the railway. County residents voted in a disputed election to move the county seat to Crosbyton. Soon most of Emma's residences and businesses were moved to Crosbyton and Ralls; the old courthouse was hauled to Cedric, where it served as housing and was eventually razed. Although the area around Emma is still agricultural, the former county seat quickly became a ghost town as residents moved to other communities. Today, the Emma Cemetery is the only remaining link to the men and women who once inhabited the town. (1968, 2004)

Historical Marker → · 3.8 mi away

Emma Cemetery

1891

Burial site of 12 Civil War veterans and County's first settlers, H. C. and Elizabeth Smith (died 1912 and 1925). Established in 1891 on land donated by J. W. Holt for the grave of his brother-in-law, Levi Jones. Land was bought by R. L. and R. R. Travis and deeded to Crosby County in 1917. 1968

Historical Marker → · 4.6 mi away

City of Ralls

1911

Founded by John R. Ralls, who donated land for a townsite. He erected greater part of the business district and gave free sites plus much of the cost of building each church in town. In 1911, he contributed 12 acres for school site. He also offered donation of 2,000 acres for site of Texas Technological College. Ralls, born in Culloden, Georgia, November 13, 1863; moved West in 1880's. After settling litigation with C.B. Livestock Company, sponsors of towns of Crosbyton and Cedric, Ralls secured railroad station, 1916; city was incorporated January 6, 1922, after death of founder. 1967

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Ralls, Texas

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Ralls, TX RoadyGoat

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Ralls, TX RoadyGoat

Walker, William Marvin [Billy]

Ralls, John Robinson

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