One Horse Plow - Panhandle, TX
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 35° 20.748 W 101° 22.795
14S E 283725 N 3913991
Displayed at the Square House Museum in Panhandle
Waymark Code: WMMT22
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/01/2014
Views: 4
County of display: Carson County
Location of display: 5th St & Elsie St., Square House Museum, Panhandle
This one resembles The New Burch plow, made in Crestline, Ohio, about 1912.
The collector of horse drawn plows faces a problem familiar to collectors of all antiquities: finding an old plow is much easier than finding information about the plow. Alan C. King's new book, Horse Drawn Plow: 63 Manufacturers and 220 Types and Styles of Plows, goes a long way toward easing that problem.
Historic marker erected by State Historical Survey Committee in 1968 is mounted next to this plow. It is there (the plow) to emphasize the acts of the pioneers on the marker.
The Text of that marker:
Texas Panhandle Pioneers
THE SIMMS BROTHERS
Permanent citizens, forgers of local civilization. Walter Franklin (1869-1963), George Leonard (born 1875) and Dormer D. Simms (born 1884) moved to Texas in 1886 and to this county in the early 1900's. They arrived later than visiting hunters, soldiers and others who in the 1870's cleared this land of buffalo and hostile Indians, and started ranching. But unlike the early ranchers who ran cattle on state-owned range, these pioneers bought land and worked to pay for it. (To tide them over drouths, such settlers sold buffalo bones and earned bounties for wolf-scalps.)
In the 1905-1906 winter, the Simms Brothers used mule-drawn plows and walked from Washburn (18 mi. SW) to Higgins (115.4 mi. NE), constructing a 4-furrow railway fireguard. John Sparks, an early local teacher and a Simms brother-in-law, worked with them and led the group in gospel singing at nightly campfires. Also in the crew were Jim Calhoun and John Sterling.
Family land ownership was preserved. Years later, oil and industry brought great prosperity to this region. A fourth generation now lives on the land.
Frank Simms married Minnie Pugh Williams; George married Alice Jane King; and Dormer married Gertrude Talbot. Descendants are leaders in Texas business.