True Stories of Amazing People and Places in Texas

What's Your Favorite Book about a Bailey County Texas Person, Place or Event? Here are some of our favorites about Muleshoe, Bula, Circle Back, Enochs, Maple and  Needmore Texas

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Grass Roots-80 Years in Bailey County is a collection of family stories, photos and genealogy covering the first 91 years of the life of Frances Gaddy Stegall. Born on August 3, 1911, Stegall moved to Bailey County, Texas in 1922. Although she had a summer home in Ruidoso, New Mexico, she has never left Bailey County. This book was originally published at age 91. At age 94 she published her first romance novel, Meggie. Her second romance novel should be out shortly after her 95th birthday and she is currently working on a third. Ms. Stegall is sharp, witty and determined. She wants the book published in her words-not in the polished words of a . . . Read more & Look inside

Stories From Barber Shops, Front Porches and Supper Tables

A collection of humorous stories about growing up in a small West Texas town during the 1940s and '50s. Author, Wayne Bristow, says, "I really did grow up 18 miles from Earth (Texas) in Muleshoe, the County Seat of Bailey County. Much of my childhood was spent around cowboys, barbers and preachers . . Read more Look inside

Stories, anecdotes and humor by the author who hails from Anton, Texas and has lived in Muleshoe, Olton, and others. He taught school in Bailey County Vocational Schools at Muleshoe and while he was there he married his college sweetheart, Gailya Lilley from Sunnyside near Dimmitt Texas . . .  Read more

Found Inside: "At Eighty-Three Years old, Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Don Maynard still chuckles at the difference between the tiny Texas tows he lived in compared to his first trip to New York City... Donald Rogers Maynard was born on January 25, 1935, in the small town of Crosbyton, Texas... When it was time to go to high school, the Maynard's lived in a rural area about 50 miles west of Lubbock. Maynard attended the Three Way Independent School District in Bailey County. The Three Way School was a six-man high school team when Maynard began playing varsity football. For his junior season in 1951, Maynard and his family moved to Colorado City which was a little bit bigger than Don was used to . . . " Read more Look inside

by Paula Paul

In her 2017 novel, Crazy Quilt, Paul writes about coming back to the places where she grew up," I can't stop staring at him., can't yet adjust to the idea of a Pakistani running a motel in Muleshoe Texas. The year is 1995, twenty years since I was back here for a visit. Twenty years since Mother and Daddy went broke and moved away. I am passing through this part of West Texas that used to be my home, on my way to visit my Aunty Cora in Lubbock" . . . Read more Look inside

Stories of intrigue and history define so many small towns in our Texas, and Muleshoe has a unique version of its own. From the life-size statue of “Ol’ Pete,” the memorial to a mule, to the many individuals who have claimed this town on the Llano Estacado their home, The Bright Lights of Muleshoe gives insight into this island upon an ocean of land. The collection of entertaining, well-researched stories ranges from the origin of one of the state’s oldest Mexican restaurants to the shock-and-awe experience of latter-day dust storms . . . Read more and Look inside

"Just east of the lake stretched the large and game-rich Casas Amarillas basin, and northwest of the lake in modern Bailey County were wetlands that attracted game of all kinds. From Silver Lake, small groups of Comanche warriors road off" . . .  Read more

This is a hilarious tale of 4 down on your luck, small town West Texas “good old boys” who hatch a scheme to make a little extra money by doing something that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, legal. Do they get caught and go to jail? Who does them in first, a ruthless Mexican drug cartel or a local hoodlum? Sit back and get ready to follow these Texas rascals through their beer infused misadventure where things don’t always turn out as planned! . . . Look inside

Muleshoe, is a not-so-modern Texas Panhandle town of about 5,000. But Jarvis Dickle’s been murdered there — three nails in the top of his head. Nobody liked Jarvis --- but then nobody even knew who he really was. His daughter, Lottie, a local disc jockey and program director for a radio station in Muleshoe, is surprised it hadn’t happened before. Down at The Coffee Mug they’re takin’ bets on who did the town a favor . . . Read more and Look Inside

The ranch where Grandpa was born and grew up, was nearly on the Texas-New Mexico border, the Texas Panhandle. There was a really good road that ran not far from the ranch to a Texas town called Muleshoe. Grandpa's girlfriend, Clara lived there and she had a brother Eldon and sister Edna . . . Look inside

Will Rogers was a true American icon. His newspaper column was read daily by 40 million people, and as radio entertainer, lecturer, movies star, and homespun sage, he was one of our most popular entertainers.

Found Inside: The experience was such a transcendent one for him that barely a week after he got back to Higgins he secured a horse and set out for Amarillo ... When that was completed, he was hired by the Mashed  - O Ranch, in Muleshoe, Texas . . . Read more Look inside

With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan

by Colonel Roy H. Elrod from Muleshoe Texas

In 1940, native West Texan Roy H. Elrod joined the Marine Corps. A few years later his unit, the 8th Marine Regiment, went into the fight at Guadalcanal, where he commanded a platoon of 37 mm gunners. They endured Japanese attacks, malarial tropical weather, and starvation rations. His combat leadership earned him a Silver Star and a battlefield promotion. On D-Day at Tarawa his platoon waded through half a mile of bullet-laced surf to get to an island where the killing never stopped.  At Saipan, Elrod commanded a platoon of 75 mm halftracks . . . Read more and look inside

by Marilyn Snethen Clark, Carol Snethen Reed and Barbara Snethen Leonard

Excerpt: A great cheer came from the four kids. The rest of the trip, Mickey enjoyed the wind on his face with his head out the window, as the six of us plus Mickey headed for our new home in Muleshoe, Texas. The house in Muleshoe was a dream for us . . . Look inside

Wanted: Historic County Jails of Texas

Along with the settlement of the Texas frontier came rustlers, public drunks, gunfighters, and other outlaws. A jail in which to incarcerate the lawbreakers was thus often the first public building raised in a new town.

Found Inside: "In 1919 Muleshoe was voted the county seat, and in that same year, the commissioners' court approved spending one hundred dollars to buy and move a twelve-year-old secondhand wooden jail from Parmer County. Roy Barber was paid fifteen dollars to deliver it to Muleshoe. It is said that . . . " Read more Look inside

In the mid 1930s, North America's Great Plains faced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in world history.

"There were sharecroppers and tenants, mules and gins, in Childress, Floyd, Hale and Bailey counties of the Texas Plains. Up north, in the wheat and cattle country, many of the residents had also come out of eastern Oklahoma or Arkansas, and their background was largely Southern poor white. Woody Guthrie is a case in point . . .  Read more Look inside

This book discloses the humorous and the sometimes controversial, if not curious, circumstances surrounding the naming of more than 700 Texas towns . . . Look inside

Robert Ruiz, Jr., born December 31, 1949, was raised in the produce fields of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and in the chili pepper, cucumber and cabbage fields in Muleshoe, Texas. He also spent time with his Father, Robert Ruiz and assisted him in his produce business and sheds in both Muleshoe and Edinburg, Texas. His purpose in writing Destiny's Journey, sought to provide children and youth with an imaginative adventure story rooted in the values of family and friendship that stand the test of time: love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, faith and patience . . . Read more and Look inside

I was leaving the town of Muleshoe, where I'd spent some time with TV anchorwoman-producer-editor-cameraperson Maggie Reynolds, who worked at a little local station. Very little, very local> She was really the only employee at Channel 6 and the station was in her home, where she broadcast from a spar bedroom . . . Look inside and Read more

by Bailey County History Book Committee

Large format hardback in attractive binding 9.5 x 12.5, 1st edition published in 1988 commemorating 75 years of history, 397 pages in length, extensive family history section.

by TX Judge Glen Williams, County Judge, Bailey County

Books about Lubbock County People and Places