TIERRA BLANCA CREEK. Tierra Blanca Creek rises in Curry County, New Mexico (at 34°50' N, 103°13' W), and enters Texas in southwestern Deaf Smith County. Then it flows east-northeast for seventy-five miles, across southern Deaf Smith and Randall counties, to join Palo Duro Creek east of Canyon near the old T Anchor Ranch headquarters site in northeastern Randall County (at 35°00' N, 101°54' W). The junction of the two streams forms the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, although in the upper course it is often called Palo Duro Creek. Tierra Blanca Creek begins in flat to rolling terrain with local escarpments where soils are mostly deep, fine sandy loams and the vegetation comprises hardwood forest, brush, and grasses. It flows through flat areas with local shallow depressions where water-tolerant conifers and grasses cover clay loam and sandy loam soils. The headquarters for the XIT Ranch's Escarbada Division, now a part of Lubbock's Ranching Heritage Center, was located near the Tierra Blanca eight miles southwest of Garcia Lake. Hereford, originally called Bluewater, was founded near the stream in 1898. Buffalo Lake is formed by a dam on the stream near Umbarger, and a smaller reservoir, McSpadden Lake, is on the Tierra Blanca southeast of downtown Canyon.