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by Jim Corder

"I want to hear about such folks as my father and how he knows how to make cement, not by recipe, but by something in his bones. I want to hear how my grandfather learned to plow a straight furrow and why even older men always called him Mister ..."

Found Inside: "Now , as I understand the matter, I was born in a farmhouse several miles outside Jayton, Texas ... Read more

by Bill Neal

"As late as 1880 Justice Colin Blackburn warned one Kent County grand jury: "the law supposes that everything is the property of the husband and that the wife is under his control...Jury arguments ensued. The defense was limited to arguing the "Frank-did-it" defense upon the grounds stated above and to calling attention to how important an acquittal was not only to Dorothy Collier but also to her daughter, Mary Frances, whose father would soon be shipped off to prison..."  Read more Look inside

Found Inside: "Within two days of the spill, authorities had already spent US$750,000 on the clean-up, and by 19 October 2004 $1.25 million had been spent (Polar Texas Oil Spill 2006). The spill damaged the winter nesting grounds of the grebe, and other ... Look inside

Deadly Dozen tells the story of twelve infamous gunfighters, feared in their own times but almost forgotten today.

Found Inside: " Clairemont, seat of Kent County, was a favorite rendezvous for rustlers, and Standifer gave it special attention. Little more than a village, with only a few homes and commercial buildings surrounding the courthouse and jail. Clairemont was a very rough town during the turn-of-the-century years and was said to average a killing a week ... " Read more Look inside

by William Shirley Carr

This book contains many stories about my life, from when I was born at home near Girard, Texas, to the present time. Almost everyone around Girard, including my family, was very poor when I was born and many years thereafter. It was not easy growing up in the late 1930s, 1940s, and early to the middle 1950s. It is also about my family, schoolmates, friends, army reserve time, and coworkers.  ... Read more Look inside

Tabitha Green was a forgotten child. Years later she is given a home. What she thought was going to be a real home, became a nightmare. Her new father Derek was a good father until he moves back home to take care of his sick mother.

Found Inside: "It was a sunny, warm day in Clairemont, Texas. The roads were clear and you were lucky to even see a person out and about. It was a small town of very few people. Tabitha and Derek finally made it to his sick mothers house. It was an old ... Read more Look inside

Jim Corder leads us through the ravines of the Croton Breaks, around to the back side of the Double Mountains, and through the streets of Jayton and Spur, as they are and as they used to be. He takes us right up to gaze at the Big Rock Candy Mountain, which, however, he can't tell us how to find since the day in 1937 when the State Highway Department made it into gravel. Fort Concho and Fort Phantom Hill, outhouses and feed mills, Col. Ranald Mackenzie and a lone Comanche brave, high school athletes and desperately lonely teachers, all come under his scrutiny and are hauntingly considered for their stories, their limitations, and the sense of place they afford . . . Read more

The Johnson-Sims Feud: Romeo and Juliet, West Texas Style

In the early 1900s, two families in Scurry and Kent counties in West Texas united in a marriage of fourteen-year-old Gladys Johnson to twenty-one-year-old Ed Sims. Billy Johnson, the father, set up Gladys and Ed on a ranch, and the young couple had two daughters. But Gladys was headstrong and willful, and Ed drank too much, and both sought affection outside their marriage. A nasty divorce ensued, and Gladys moved with her girls to her father’s luxurious ranch house, where she soon fell in love with famed Texas Ranger Frank Hamer . . . Read more Look Inside

John Wesley Hardin! His name spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive with a $4000 reward on his head. A Texas Ranger wrote that he killed men just to see them kick ...

Found Inside: "... told me the story of Hardin's brother, Jefferson Davis Hardin, who was killed in a gunfight in Kent County, Texas  ... " Read more Look inside

Winner of the Belmont University Prize for Best Book on Country Western Music.

"Weldon Myrick, from Jayton, Texas, who today is one of Nashville's leading session steel guitar players, also played in these informal backup groups on the "Sunday Party." Sonny described it as a "real serious music scene." In addition to ... Read more Look inside

The panhandle plains were Texas's last frontier, barren lands populated by hostile Comanche and outlaws attempting to outrun civilization.

"We camped that night near the courthouse at Aspermont, Texas. The next day when our wagons crossed the Brazos into Kent County we experienced our first west Texas dust Storm. The sky turned red and we couldn't see.. The wind blew so hard we couldn't put up a canvas to block the wind . . . 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.

"The time arrived for the contest and eleven cowboys were within the enclosure. Boley  Brown from Kent County, one of the eleven, was there on his big six-year old sorrel horse. Boley was a great sport and everybody was betting on his sorrel to win. The gate was finally closed, but in a moment a cowboy from Childress rode up on a find-looking horse." . . . Read more Look inside

The thirty-three Depression-era interviews presented here were culled from the WPA-Federal Writers' Project. They faithfully show how old-time Texas cowhands lived and how they felt about their glamour-less existence. "My dad died about thirty years ago, and m mother married Amos Atkins, who ran the Rail A. He owned about thirty thousand acres in his Rail A spread in Kent County. He still owns that place but I never did know how many head of cattle he ran on it. He finally leased all of the  " ... Read more Look inside

Pink Higgins was a rugged Texan who lived a life of classic Western adventure. He was a cowboy, Indian fighter, trail driver, stock detective, rancher, and deadly shootist who killed more adversaries than did such noted gunfighters as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson.

Chapter 11. Murder in Clairemont ... Read more Look Inside

"The indefatigable T. Lindsay Baker has now turned his enormous mental and physical energies to the subject and has brought to view - if not to life -eighty-six Texas ghost towns for the reader's pleasure. Baker lists three criteria for inclusion: tangible remains, public access, and statewide coverage. In each case Baker comments about the town's founding, its former significance, and the reasons for its decline.

"Clairemont. As early as 1876 the community had a post office, with Elisha D. McCoy as postmaster, and by 1890s it had two active churches, a cotton gin, and a school ... Read more

Found inside: "The walls of the shuttered Barfoot Hotel in Jayton are cracked and the paint has peeled, but a twisted oak tree still provides shade for the grand old lady ... According to one juicy tale, cattle trucks whisked the county records from the original courthouse in Clairemont and then a fire mysteriously destroyed the building. The records surfaced in Jayton, and so did a new courthouse. "That makes a good story, 'laughs librarian Micky Parker, "but cattle trucks didn't ... Read more

. . . See all available Jayton Texas Yearbooks 

See all available Girard Texas Yearbooks

West Texas History & Memories (Face Book Group)

Early Life in Texas County by County

Books about Texas People and Places

Famous People from Texas County by County

Texas History in the 19th Century (Amazon)

Texas History by Category and Event