Name: Ralls, Texas
Address: Ralls, TX

Crosbyton, TX RoadyGoat

Crosbyton's history is deeply rooted in the land and its agricultural potential. In 1902, the C. B. Livestock Company purchased 90,000 acres, and by 1912, a 10,000-acre demonstration farm managed by Judge L. Gough showcased the area's potential for cotton cultivation, leading to significant land sales. The town's foundation began in 1908 when the C. B. Livestock Company surveyed a townsite, opening Crosbyton for settlement. In 1910, Crosbyton secured the county seat designation after winning a vote against Emma, marking a pivotal moment in its history. The Crosbyton-South Plains Railroad commenced operations in 1911, further solidifying its growth.

RoadyGoat → · 8.7 mi away

Crosbyton, TX RoadyGoat

The foundation of Crosbyton began in 1908 when the C. B. Livestock Company surveyed a townsite, subsequently opening it for settlement. This was a significant moment, as it marked the beginning of the town's development. The same year, the Crosbyton post office was established, and the Crosbyton Inn, a three-story hotel, was erected, indicating the early commitment to building a community.

RoadyGoat → · 8.7 mi away

Blanco Canyon - Quanah Parker's Night Raid RoadyGoat

1871

On the night of October 10, 1871, Quanah Parker proved why the Comanche were the greatest light cavalry on the continent. Colonel Ranald Mackenzie had led the 4th Cavalry into Blanco Canyon, southeast of present-day Crosbyton, chasing reports of a large Comanche village along the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos. It was Mackenzie's first campaign on the Staked Plains, and he was overconfident. Around midnight, Quanah led a small band of warriors on a stampede run straight through the Army camp. They screamed, fired guns, and waved blankets. The cavalry's horses and mules panicked. Seventy animals broke free and thundered into the darkness, taking the Army's mobility with them. Mackenzie spent the next day chasing Quanah across the caprock in a forty-mile running fight, but the Comanche knew the terrain and the soldiers did not. Mackenzie never caught them. He limped back to Fort Richardson humiliated but wiser. He would return three years later and destroy the Comanche horse herd at Palo Duro Canyon. Blanco Canyon taught him that the Comanche could not be outrun. They had to be starved of their horses. That lesson ended the Comancheria.

10.7 mi away

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

Tsha Handbook →

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.

Tsha Handbook →

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

Ralls, TX

1911

Ralls is at the junction of U.S. highways 62 and 82 and State Highway 207, twenty-seven miles east of Lubbock in west central Crosby County. It was founded by John Robinson Ralls , who, with the help of W. E. McLaughlin, laid out a townsite in July 1911. At his own expense Ralls then began moving a number of businesses and houses from Emma to the new town. He also donated land in 1911 for a new school, and in 1913 the second school term was held on this site in a new $17,000 building. Benefiting from its location on the Santa Fe Railroad, Ralls thrived as new settlers and freight were brought in. The Ralls Chamber of Commerce was organized in 1917, and Percy Ralls, brother of John, became its first president. In 1922 the population of Ralls reached 950, and on January 6 of that year Ralls was incorporated. The Great Depression brought problems, which were compounded by the worst hail and wind storm in Crosby County history on June 19, 1935. During the storm two residents were killed, and the compress at Ralls was unroofed. Prosperity returned during the 1940s as agriculture thrived. Area farms were irrigated, and a building boom got under way in the latter part of the decade. By 1951 more than 100 business establishments were located in Ralls. Over the years several school districts have consolidated with Ralls schools either wholly or in part. A partial listing includes the districts of Owens, League Four, Canyon Valley, Fairview, New Home, and Farmer. Governor Preston Smith dedicated the Ralls Historical Museum on March 6, 1970. The museum is housed in the old John R. Ralls Bank building and contains thousands of mementos pertaining to Crosby County history, including fifteen period rooms. Ralls, a retail and shipping center, is surrounded by a productive farming region that produces cotton, grains, soybeans, sunflowers, and vegetables. In 1980 Ralls, the largest town in Crosby County, had a population of 2,422 and in 1990 2,172. The population was 2,252 in 2000.

Tsha Handbook →

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

Historical Marker →

Ralls, Texas

Music in Ralls

Songs About Ralls

Artists From Ralls

History of Ralls

Crosbyton, TX RoadyGoat

Crosbyton, TX RoadyGoat

Blanco Canyon - Quanah Parker's Night Raid RoadyGoat

Walker, William Marvin [Billy]

Ralls, John Robinson

Emma

Emma Cemetery

Ralls, TX

City of Ralls

Everything Near Ralls