True Stories of Amazing People and Places in Texas

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Within the pages of this book these genuine legends who rode through a golden moment in American history live on. Found inside: "Born February 8, 1906, Bill Townsend grew up in Fluvanna in Surry County and got his first horse-breaking job in 1923 in Borden County. In the mid-1920s he worked for the Slaughter operation near Post, the Matadors, and the Beal outfit near Gail . . . Read more

The panhandle plains were Texas's last frontier, barren lands populated by hostile Comanche and outlaws attempting to outrun civilization. It was Texas Ranger and frontier scout Jim Jackson who first saw potential in the region. They were the point riders who took the challenge of opening Kent, Garza, Crosby, Lynn, Borden, Dawson, Mitchell, Fisher, Scurry, Stonewall, and Nolan Counties to permanent settlement . . . Read more Look inside

J. W. Williams’s classic survey of the big ranches of the Southwest reaches deep into the stories of key players in American ranching history. "It was up this canyon some ten miles north of the place where Post City is located that Young and Galbraith drove their small herd of cattle with the Y. G. Brand in 1879" . . . Read more Look inside

At the end of February about fifty Comanches rode up on Marshal Sewall, who was shooting bison and did not notice the Indians approaching. Sewall's outfit was near the head of the Salt Fork of the Brazos River, probably in modern Garza County and about five miles northeast of Devins's Camp. . . Read more

"In 1910, C. W. Post, the cereal magnate, began an ambitious rainmaking project on his 20,000 acres of the Texas plains. Pos had noticed that in accounts of wars which he had read, heavy rains always seemed to follow artillery battles. He believed that with enough explosions he could produce Rain He blew off boxcars of dynamite on the plains around his town of Post City, Texas. . . . " Read more Look Inside

By David Lee

David Lee played semiprofessional baseball as the only white player to ever play for the Negro League Post Texas Blue Stars and was a knuckleball pitcher for the South Plains Texas League Hubbers. These poems are rooted in stories overheard at the Wayburne Pig Cafe. They capture a rural community's true voice, peppered with gossip and arguments right off Main Street. It was nominated  for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry . . . Read more Look inside

Page 71: In order to reach the flat land of West Texas, the family passed through Post, Texas. West of Post was a steep incline to the Caprock. The dirt road made it difficult to climb with heavy farm equipment . . .

"About this time Pop was given a team of mules and a wagon as payment of a debt, However he had to bring them from Post, Texas, back to Lamesa, a distance of about fifty miles. Without warning, a Blue Norther hit, covering the ground with sleet and ice. The mules wouldn't move" . . . Read more Look inside

Erickson tells the story of people in the context of a specific place. This place, instrumental in shaping their lives, is the flatland prairie of northwestern Texas that has gone by various names (High Plains, South Plains, Staked Plains, and Llano Estacado), as well as the rugged country on its eastern boundary, often referred to as the “caprock canyonlands.” ...

Max Coleman says that Sherman worked for a time with Nave-McCord Cattle Company on their Square and Compass Ranch in Garza County, near present-day Post . . . Read more

Floyd Tillman was an influential singer and songwriter in the 1940's who spent his teenage years in Post, Texas. His songs include classics such as "It Makes No Difference Now"

"Born David Pinkston on November 11, 1913 in Post, Texas, David Sloan grew up loving country music through the phonograph records of his parents, friends, and relatives. . . . Read more Look inside

"Pete, with his mother and dad, lived on a ranch on the edge of the Caprock near Post, Texas. Part of the ranch was on top of the Caprock and part below. In that area, the rocky cliffs of the edge were not as high and steep as in some other. Their ranch house below the edge, protected from the northwest wind . . ." Read more Look inside

I can remember being so involved in everything that happed back in Post, Texas. Who might be sleeping with whom was just about the most important news in town . . . Read more Look inside

Rather than a narrative history of the Comanches, this account presents analyses of the formation of clans. "Cowhead Mesa in Southwestern Garza County, Texas has been described as "a typical bread-loaf-shaped western mesa. Among the the various carvings etched into the mesa's pliant walls is a pictographic account of the violent San Sabs Mission episode, apparently put there by a Comanche artist-historian sometime after the attack of March 16, 1758 . . . Read more

"In 1905, Ed Sims, 21, married 14-year-old Gladys Johnson. Billy Johnson helped the couple acquire a ranch south of Post City, seat of Garza County. Instead of the happy union of two ranching families, the marriage became turbulent and adulterous" . . . Read more Look inside

Except for western history buffs, almost everyone has forgotten the Texas outlaw John Larn. "Big Bill Gilson stayed clear of Fort Griffin after Larn was lynched.  In 1883 he was a hired gun in a fence - cutting war in Garza County , and the following year returned to Sweetwater . There he met his death at the hands . . . " Read more

J. Wright Mooar tells the story of the buffalo hunter, from the hunter's perspective, in this first-person account published more than seventy years ago.

The story from Wright Mooar's lips; and the rugged old frontiersman, among the very last of the buffalo hunters, laughed heartily over the Indians amazement and frantic flight. 'Where did that happen'?' I asked. 'Somewhere in Garza County, Texas, not far from where Post is now.. . . " Read more Look inside

by Charles Dudley Eaves and C. Alan Hutchinson

Documents cereal king C.W. Post's colonization efforts from the founding of his namesake town in 1907 until 1918

Black Horse and the Last Indian War in Texas

The last Indian raid in Texas began when Black Horse and his renegade band of Comanche, camped in Yellow House Canyon in 1876 in Lubbock County and murdered a hunter near present-day Post. The running battle that became known as "The Buffalo Hunter's War" was fought across the South Plains with major incidents in Garza and Lubbock counties and came to an end in Cochran County when Black Horse surrendered to Buffalo Soldiers out of Abilene . . . continued

Books about Lubbock County People and Places