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Cranes
in mid-flight near South Plains
Photo Courtesy Eric Blackwell, November 2006 |
South Plains History
in a Pecan ShellA
Moveable Post Office
In 1909 a post office was opened in the store of J.D.
Childress five miles east of present-day South Plains. Operating under the name
of Curlew the town had been a stagecoach stop. The post office was reopened
in the home of Mrs. J. W. Simms, which was about three miles closer to the present
South Plains and finally it moved to its present location alongside the railroad
when it arrived in the late 1920s.
Mr. Childress' original Curlew store
moved to the railroad in 1929. 200 acres of land was subdivided into town lots
in 1927 and about this time South Plains opened its first hotel (burned in 1934).
South Plains became another casualty of the Great Depression and although
it had a population of 180 people as late as 1980, it had shrunk to a mere 25
by 1990 - the same figure continues to be used on the official state map for 2006.
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