|
West Texas townsite company sells more than 200 lots despite sandstorm
On this day in 1924, the Anton Townsite Company sponsored a "Grand
Opening Jubilee" despite a blinding sandstorm and succeeded in selling
more than 200 lots in the new town of Anton, Texas. Like many other
Texas towns and cities, Anton, in Hockley County about twenty-five miles
northwest of Lubbock, traces its origin to the arrival of the railroad,
which fixed Texas urban development in a spatial pattern that remains
little altered today. Anton was located in the center of what had been
the Spade Ranch's north pasture at the site of Danforth Switch, a spur
of the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway. The town was named in honor of
J. F. Anton, a Santa Fe railroad executive. By 1926 several churches had
been established; by 1929 the town had a bank. Grain, cotton, and later
oil were central to the economy. The town, which bills itself as the
"Rabbit Capital of Texas," also had a large rabbit-processing plant for
a time, though by 1982 it had closed down. In 1998 the town's population
was estimated at 1,254.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- ANTON, TX
- SPADE RANCH
- PECOS AND NORTHERN TEXAS RAILWAY
- HOCKLEY COUNTY
- URBANIZATION
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Baylor University dedicates Armstrong Browning Library (1951)
- Outlaw meets his match (1884)
- Dallas Morning News buys out rival paper (1885)
|
