Holt, Texas, Hutchinson County. (original) (raw)
Historical Marker
Holt Cemetery
In the late 1890s Texas enacted colonization and homestead laws that significantly quickened the settlement of the then sparsely populated Panhandle region of North Texas. Hutchinson County soon recorded the required 150 applications for land purchases in the county to formally organize in 1901. In 1903 early county settlers Benjamin and Birda May (Kirk) Holt donated seven acres here to be used as the site of a community schoolhouse and cemetery. The first person buried here was Nola Storrs in 1909.
A new schoolhouse was built here in 1916 and in 1917 the Holts legally recorded their 7-acre donation. Five acres were set aside for school purposes and two acres for the cemetery, which at that time contained about 11 gravesites. When Holt School trustees deeded the school's five acres and vacated schoolhouse to the Holt Cemetery Association in 1948, about an acre of this property was converted for cemetery use.
In 1907 the cemetery association established policies governing the use of this site. The cemetery, which continues to serve the local community, contains the gravesites of many of this area's first settlers and those of veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean conflict.
(1993)
Holt School
Texas Historic Landmark
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson , March 2010
Historical Marker:
Holt School
A county-wide public school district was established soon after Hutchinson County was created in 1901. As more people began to settle in the area, regional school districts were formed.
Common School District No. 8 was established in the northeastern corner of the county in 1902. The first schoolhouse, located on land owned by Benjamin Calvin Holt, was a one-room structure built in 1903.
This two-room schoolhouse was constructed in 1916 with lumber and other building materials hauled in from Texoma, Oklahoma. The simple wooden structure exhibits classical revival style detailings, especially in the gable entrance. Other features include oversized windows and decorative wood shingles.
Regular school classes were held here until 1935, when students began attending school in Spearman. The building, however, remained a community gathering place. The site of worship services, weddings and funerals, it has also hosted community activities such as quilting bees and local theater productions and continues to serve as an election polling place. The school buildings and grounds were deeded to the Holt Cemetery Association in 1949.
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1989.
Holt School and historical markers
On FM 281
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson , March 2010
Historical Marker
Drift Fence
Famed cattleman Charles Goodnight established one of the first ranches in the Texas Panhandle, the J A Ranch, in 1876. Later that year, Thomas S. Bugbee established the first cattle ranch in Hutchinson County.
As a result of soaring beef prices cattle ranching proliferated in this region of the U.S. in the 1880s. The Texas Panhandle, with its open range and expansive grasslands, became the preferred winter grazing site for cattle migrating south from Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. This seasonal influx of cattle disrupted the practice of area ranchers who went to great lengths to respect adjacent ranch boundaries.
Members of the Panhandle Stock Association pooled their resources and in 1882-85 erected barbed wire barriers along a 200-mile stretch of the Panhandle including Hutchinson County to prevent cattle from drifting south into the fertile Canadian River Valley.
The "drift fence" worked too well in the winters of 1886 and 1887 when thousands of cattle moving south ahead of strong storms stalled at the fence line and froze or were trampled to death. The staggering losses prompted federal and state legislation which limited fencing on public lands and the "drift fence" was removed or incorporated into private ranch fencing.
Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.
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