HITCHLAND, TEXAS. Hitchland, on a local road and the Texas-Oklahoma line in northern Hansford County, was named for J. H. and Charles A. Hitch, early settlers and landowners in the vicinity. Serving an area devoted to ranching and grain-farming, Hitchland became a town when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway was built across the county in the 1920s. A post office was established at the townsite in July 1930, with Myrtle L. McComas as postmistress. The office was discontinued in January 1955, and local mail was routed through Guymon, Oklahoma. The Hitchland school joined the Gruver Independent School District in 1954. Hitchland reported a population of 100 in 1939 and also in 1948, when three businesses and a post office made up the community. By 1980 the population had declined to twenty-seven, and it continued to be reported at that level in the early 1990s, and it continued to be reported at that level through 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hansford County Historical Commission, Hansford County, Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Taylor, 1980?). S. G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroads (Houston: St. Clair, 1941; rpt., New York: Arno, 1981).
