BUCKLER, CECIL VICTOR PAYNE (1885-1967). C. P. Buckler, Panhandle^qv ranch manager and civic leader, was born in England in 1885 and educated in English private schools. His father was a member of the London Stock Exchange. Buckler moved to the Texas Panhandle at the age of nineteen, after his parents had died and his younger brother had gone to Egypt. He began working as a ranchhand for the White Deer Land Company in 1905, but his ability to type and take shorthand soon earned him the job of company bookkeeper. In 1909 he married Annie Thut; they had three daughters. Buckler gradually lost his distinctive British accent, dropped the Victor from his name, and in 1914 became a United States citizen. In addition to his role as stenographer for British-owned White Deer Lands, he served as justice of the peace, played the baritone in Alex Schneider's town band, and worked to promote the growth of Pampa. In 1935 Buckler became sole manager of White Deer, after comanaging it with M. K. Brown since 1924. He was among the American citizens who purchased most of the British interests in White Deer Corporation when it was reorganized in 1949. He served as its vice president and Texas agent until its liquidation in 1957.

Buckler was a member of the board of the Pampa Independent School District for sixteen years, was a charter member and president of the Pampa Rotary Club, and helped establish the Pampa Country Club. He was one of three appointed trustees of the Lovett estate, a senior warden at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, a Mason, and a director of the Fairview Cemetery Association of Pampa. He also served as a director of the First National Bank and was president of Security Federal Savings and Loan Association. He was a member of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society,^qv served on its board of directors, and was its president in 1960-61. He and M. K. Brown donated the old Francklyn Land and Cattle Company ^qv records to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum^qv in 1959. In his lifetime Buckler saw Pampa grow from a frontier community of fewer than fifty persons to a progressive industrial center. He died on December 27, 1967, and was buried in Fairview Cemetery. Buckler Street, where his home was located, is named for him.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sylvia Grider, "`He's for Progress': C. P. Buckler and the White Deer Land Company," West Texas Historical Association Yearbook 43 (1967).