White Deer Land Company Building - Pampa, TX
Posted by: YoSam.
N 35° 32.113 W 100° 57.656
14S E 322223 N 3934167
Heavy British investment in both the original company and the successor.
Waymark Code: WM6ZF6
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 08/10/2009
Views: 7
Now a museum.
Business Hours: 8am to 4pm.
Visitors Hours: 1pm to 4pm ~ Tuesday thru Sat.
If doors are locked please ring doorbell located to your right.
Texas Historical Commission Marker Text:
WHITE DEER LAND BUILDING
Erected in 1916
Houses property records of the White Deer Land Company (1886-1957), one of the strongest commercial influences in settlement of the Texas Panhandle.
Organized from wreckage of the bankrupt Francklyn Land and Cattle Company - whose chief stockholder was Lord Rosebery, Prime Minister of England - the White Deer Company developed during widespread British speculation in Texas cattle and ranching, 1870s-80s.
At its beginning, the London-financed and Wall-Street-Based Trust owned land equal in area to the state of Rhode Island. These 631,000 acres lay in Gray, Roberts, Carson, and Hutchinson Counties.
The Company (Managed by George Tyng, T.D. Hobart, C.P. Buckler, and M.K. Brown) surveyed the land, laid out farms and ranches, sank wells, built hundreds of miles of wire fence, and aided civic projects. During the disastrous drouth of 1910, it made available to local farmers $100,000 in loans to buy wheat seed.
Upon discovery of oil on White Deep land in 1921, the firm made vast gains by retaining half of the mineral rights on remaining land sold. It was liquidated in 1957. This building has also housed a Masonic Lodge, Post Office, medical and dental offices, and has accommodated religious services.