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Why
on Earth would someone name a town Earth?
Just imagine the communication inconveniences plaguing those living
in the Lamb County community of Earth:
“Where’re you from?”
“I’m from Earth.”
“Har, har! Me, too. Where are you really from?”
When you live in this High
Plains town 70 miles northwest of Lubbock,
every time you say goodbye to a visitor, you have to guard against
a polite, “I’ll look forward to seeing you the next time you come
to Earth.”
Or say you moved to Austin
to attend the University of Texas, but occasionally like to go home
to see family and friends.
“I’m going back to Earth for the holidays.”
Even if you stayed behind, when you’re ready to go someplace else,
telling your friends, “I’m leaving Earth for a few days” could net
a few snickers.
Obviously, simply asking someone if they have ever visited Earth can
cause misunderstanding.
Rancher
William E. Halsell did not make the heavens above, or the fishes in
the sea, but he created Earth in 1924. He had been in the area since
1901, when he bought up a huge chunk of the old XIT ranch for $2 an
acre. In August 1924 he had a town site platted and began selling
lots.
The Halsell Land Co. built a hotel, a cotton gin and the first house.
Within a couple of years Earth could boast of a café, a service station,
a store or two and more residences. And that’s about all the solid
ground there is when it comes to the history of Earth.
Researchers
have un-earthed at least four versions of how a point in a rural High
Plains county became Earth:
The first settlers wanted to call the new town Tulsa, but the U.S.
Post Office quickly took them back to Tulsa as a bad choice, since
such a town already existed in Oklahoma.
Halsell supposedly called his town Fairlawn (some say Fairlene), but
the frequent blowing dirt inspired someone to come up with Earth.
Another tale has R.C. “Daddy” Reeves, who operated the new town’s
hotel, declaring: “We’ve got more earth here than anything else, let’s
call it Earth.”
A final version has Halsell, wanting to emphasize the fertile soil
around his town, came up with Good Earth. Washington, this tale holds,
did away with “Good” and made the place plain old Earth.
While
accounts vary as to how Earth,
Texas got its worldly name, you can take to the soil bank that
Earth is the only place in the United States called Earth. (There’s
Black Earth, Wisc., Blue Earth, Minn., White Earth, Minn. and Md.,
Earth City, Mo and Middle Earth, Md. but that’s as close as it gets.)
Neither does a global search reveal another Earth anywhere on Earth.
Someone seemingly with all the time on Earth has also discovered that
in addition to Earth, the state of Texas has a small solar system
of other towns named after the planets swirling around our sun. Beyond
Earth, Texas’ extraterrestrial town names include Mercury,
Mars, Saturn and Pluto. Several states have Venus, Jupiter and Neptune
as town names, though no state has chosen to honor Uranus.
But to get back to Earth, despite its all-encompassing name, it’s
a pretty down-to-Earth community, a rural agricultural center whose
principle landmark is a shiny silver-colored water tower with the
green (as in “God’s green Earth”) letters E-A-R-T-H painted on its
tank.
Speaking of paint, several of the buildings along State Highway 70,
the town’s main thoroughfare, have been enhanced by someone handy
with a brush. The former movie theater, long since closed, has been
dolled up as “The Tin Star,” featuring Anthony Perkins perpetually
playing in “The Blob” with showings at 6 and 10 p.m. daily and matinees
at 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
Down the street at Main and Cedar is the paint-enhanced office of
the Earth News, an imaginary newspaper “Dedicated to the Development
of the World’s Richest Irrigation Area.” On the side of another building,
someone painted a giant green population sign reading “Earth Pop.
1019.”
That population is not big enough to support its own school, so students
go to class in nearby Springlake. Because of that, the football team
is known as the Wolverines, not Earthmen.
Small but tough, Earth endured the Dust Bowl and the Depression but
stayed in slow decline until the late 1970s. The high point of Earth’s
orbit came in 1980, when the town’s population peaked at 1,512. But
the number of those calling Earth home has dropped by nearly a third
since then.
Even the Dairy Queen stands abandoned these days. |
©
Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
April 10, 2008 column
Related Stories:
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Announcement
Mike Cox's "The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900,"
the first of a two-volume, 250,000-word definitive history of the
Rangers, was released by Forge Books in New York on March 18, 2008
Kirkus Review, the American Library Association's Book List and the
San Antonio Express-News have all written rave reviews about this
book, the first mainstream, popular history of the Rangers since 1935. |
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