Pieces of the Past
Historic buildings give a glimpse of early ranching life on the South Plains

BY RAY WESTBROOK
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

In a park-like space of about eight acres, residents of Bailey County have created a three-dimensional picture of West Texas that portrays buildings the way they looked before horizon-to-horizon ranches began dissolving into individual farms.

Within their virtual corral, called Muleshoe Heritage Center, is a two-story mail-order home assembled in 1915 for a rancher's bride; a surviving hotel from a ghost town; and a Muleshoe Ranch cookhouse and bunkhouse that once provided respite for cowboys weary from driving cattle across the Panhandle rangeland.

Most structures anchor the center to the early 1900s, including the headquarters building for the Figure 4 Ranch and the Santa Fe Depot.

An exception is Muleshoe's own Little House on the Prairie, a log cabin originally constructed in 1870 with 400-pound logs near Shawnee, Okla. It was moved to Muleshoe by John Fried, and then restored by the Muleshoe Heritage Foundation in 1998.

The log cabin had originally been held together by wooden pegs. In its restoration, clay from an area south of Muleshoe was used in combination with sand and cement to mortar the logs in place.

Sammie Clark Simpson, who with others of the foundation conducted extensive research on the buildings, said it was discovered that the Figure 4 Ranch headquarters building was assembled from a mail-order kit.

The structure was built at a location about a mile south of Goodland in Southwest Bailey County near the New Mexico state line.

"When we started taking all the woodwork out, it definitely was a kit house," Simpson said. "But we do not know what company. The most likely one is the Crane Company in Houston, but we can't document that."

The building was donated to the Muleshoe Heritage Center by Alta Cates of Lubbock, who also provided $11,000 to have it moved from the ranch to Muleshoe.

Some of the stories associated with the old buildings have a poignancy reflected by the hard realities of pioneer ranching. The Janes Ranch House is one of those.

Simpson and the foundation's researchers say that rancher John Janes brought his bride, Anna, from Kansas City to the Janes Ranch in 1913 and built a two-story home in 1915 to prove his love for her.

With a large ballroom and an adjacent sitting room on the upper floor, the home was massive by the day's standards, and equipped mysteriously for entertaining in a sparsely populated area.

Still, traditions persist across the years that the Janeses did have grand dances, and ranch families traveled to the home from throughout the region.

The couple's time together ended in 1918, when a flu epidemic took Anna's life.

In the wake of that loss, John sold his cattle, leased his 52,000 acres of land and never returned to the business of ranching.

But he kept the home and a few surrounding acres to share with his daughter, John Ann, who had been born in 1914. And even after they moved to Amarillo, they would go back to spend their summers in the home with the large ballroom.

Much of the preservation efforts in Muleshoe can be traced to students in the public school, according to educator Jean Allison, who served as sponsor of a group called Student Community Action Committee.

The organization raises funds and encourages participation by adults in the community.

LaVonne McKillip, also associated with the Muleshoe Heritage Foundation, said interest in history began building when seventh-grade students worked on a history of Bailey County, which she later edited.

"I taught those kids college-level research skills," she said.

Allison said the Muleshoe Heritage Center has become a beautiful place in a city of less than 5,000 population. "The important thing to me is the tremendous support from the community."

According to Dolores Harvey, hostess of the Muleshoe Heritage Center, the facility is open free to the public from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Simpson said the collection of buildings at Muleshoe includes a diminutive hotel from the ill-fated Virginia City project. It was used to provide lodging for prospective land buyers who had come to look at land around Virginia City in the early 1900s.

Provided by Wes Hall

Hotels, like this, were small in Virginia City, a budding town in central Bailey County in 1910. It was 24-by-17 feet, not counting the porch, and had two stories. But Virginia City, which was intended as a county seat, became a ghost town in 1913.

But a drought struck the Virginia City area in 1910. "Within three years, it was gone," Simpson said. Only the small hotel building remained in a town that once had been envisioned as the Bailey County seat.

That period, from which most of the buildings of the Muleshoe Heritage Center came, represents the transition from ranching to farming for the area, according to Simpson.

But at Muleshoe Heritage Center, a sample of the structures remains.

"This preserves the history of ranching," she said.

Provided by Wes Hall

The Muleshoe Ranch Cookhouse and Bunkhouse, which once provided food and lodging for cowboys, was brought to the Muleshoe Heritage Center in 1986.

Although it required long, painstaking hours over a period of years to research the Muleshoe-area projects, the perseverance was rewarding.

"I have enjoyed the work," she said. "It has been a labor of love."

	Muleshoe Heritage Center • At 2000 Ash Ave. in Muleshoe. • Free, accepts donations, open 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. • Displays ranch buildings, primarily from the early 1900s. • Supported by the Muleshoe Heritage Foundation, Student Community Action Club and volunteers. • (806) 272-5873. • Muleshoe Heritage Foundation, P.O. Box 201, Muleshoe, TX 79347.
Provided by Wes Hall
Rather appropriately, Muleshoe Heritage Center has a gigantic mule shoe as an entrance to its museum. The center is open to the public from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 2000 Ash Ave.

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