I snapped a picture of the Goodnight Inn sign on the edge of Claude, Texas, because I thought it was a pretty clever name for a motel. But it turns out there’s quite a bit more to that name. Just a few miles down the road sits the Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site. The Goodnights were pretty busy people and certainly left their mark on the Texas landscape; among many other achievements, Mary Ann worked to help conserve remants of the Southern Bison Herd, while Charles was a founder of the first cattle ranch in the Panhandle (1877). Their ranch house remains on its original site, and now that I know a bit more about it, I hope for a chance to stop and check it out one day. On another note, I only just realized there’s actually a town named Panhandle located about 30 miles east of Amarillo.

The cattle ranching town of Clarendon, Texas, was founded in 1878 and is one of the three original Panhandle settlements. The other two were Mobeetie and Tascosa. These days, you’ll find Boys Ranch at the former site of Tascosa; and if the name Tascosa sounds familiar, it was the setting for the big showdown in Jimmy Stewart’s great Western from 1950, Winchester ’75.

The town of Hedley, in Donley County, had its start in the early 1900s. As a cotton-producing hub, its population reached 807 in 1930 but has since been on the decline, down to 275 in 2020.

I didn’t manage to get many photos of Memphis, Texas, but it does have a fairly interesting history. Founded in 1889, it’s been the county seat of Hall County since 1891. In trying to come up with a good name for their new town, community leaders were finally inspired by a misdirected letter  — it was meant to go to Tennessee but was addressed “Memphis, Texas.”

“Memphis Compress Co., Memphis Texas”