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History in
a Pecan Shell
Plemons started
life in 1898 from a dugout built by rancher James A. Whittenburg.
The site, however, was named for Barney Plemons, the son of William
Buford Plemons, an Amarillo
judge and state legislator. In 1901, Plemons was chosen as the Hutchinson
county seat and a post office soon opened. A small frame structure
served as a courthouse until it was replaced by a two-story frame
building later that same year.
In its first seven years, Plemons became the home for an estimated
15 families. The town’s most famous resident was William (Billy) Dixon,
the former buffalo hunter, who became the first sheriff of Hutchinson
County.
The town was bypassed by the railroad (the Amarillo branch line of
the Rock Island Railroad) and started into a decline. In 1926 Stinnett,
which was on the railroad, became the new county seat. The discovery
of oil kept Plemons alive for another 20 years, but the population
was down to 100 people by 1940 and only three businesses were reported.
The post office closed in 1952 and today only the cemetery and historical
markers mark the former town. |
Historical Marker:
4.2 miles N of Borger on
State Hwy 207/136/162
Plemons Cemetery
The town of Plemons
was settled about 1898 when James A. Whittenburg, an area rancher,
built a dugout house in a hill overlooking a bend in the Canadian
River about seven miles northeast of this site. The town was named
for Barney Plemons, son of Amarillo judge and State Legislator William
Buford Plemons, and when Hutchinson
County was organized in Spring 1901, Plemons was chosen county
seat. E. E. Akers contracted to build a brick courthouse in that year.
According to local oral history accounts, Mrs. E. E. Akers was the
first to be interred in the Plemons Cemetery, probably in 1902.
Plemons experienced slow growth as a river crossing town. By 1905
a wagon yard, barbershop, doctor's office, drugstore and mercantile
store formed a business base for about fifteen families. Former buffalo
hunter, scout and Hutchinson
County's first Sheriff William (Billy) Dixon and his family operated
a hotel for three years. The Amarillo branch of the Rock Island Line
was completed through the area in 1926, stopping in Stinnett
instead of Plemons. Voters chose Stinnett as the new county seat and
Plemons gradually declined. The new county oil boom kept the town
going for another two decades.
The last burial in the Plemons Cemetery, which includes 66 graves,
was that of Charles Ray Sessions, interred in 1953. In 1987 cemetery
preservation efforts by local Boy Scouts uncovered a sandstone grave
marker reading "Mrs. E. E. A.," lending significant credence to the
oral history accounts that Mrs. Akers was the first to be interred
on this site. The Plemons Cemetery serves as a chronicle of early
Hutchinson County history.
(1999) |
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Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
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