FARWELL, TEXAS (Hansford County). Farwell, in the center of Hansford County about three miles east of what later became Gruver, was established in 1880 by the Canott family of Illinois and was the first town in the county. Water was supplied to the settlement by a hand-dug well 200 feet deep. Like Farwell in Parmer County, the Hansford County community was named for John V. Farwell, a Chicago merchant and a principal in the Capitol Syndicate, which built the present Capitol building in Austin. The county's first newspaper, the Farwell Graphic, was established in Farwell, which at one time also had a livery stable, store, hotel, saloon, and butcher shop. A post office was established there in 1887 but was moved to Hansford in 1894. Farwell rapidly fell into oblivion after 1889, when it lost a county seat election to Hansford.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hansford County Historical Commission, Hansford County, Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Taylor, 1980?). Dotty Jones, A Search for Opportunity: A History of Hansford County (Gruver, Texas: Jones, 1965).
