Notes for Ruffus Wessley Patrick: Texas Ghost Town GASOLINE, TEXAS Briscoe County (Sr.) , Texas Panhandle
1903-1948:
About four miles SE of Quitaque on CR 599
( No photos available )
A Very Brief History:
A group of settlers got together and sunk a well in the area about 1903. Today only a few houses dot the landscape where Gasoline once was. Even the cemetery (Rest Haven) is two miles north. The unusual name dates from 1907, the date when they got the first post office. How they decided on this unusual name is lost to history, but the Handbook of Texas suggests that the town's cotton gin ran on gasoline and gasoline was still regarded "as a novelty" in the Panhandle.
A Full Day in Gasoline
No population reports were given, however, school expansions indicate that Gasoline was once thriving. Residents could have their horses shod at the blacksmith while they got a haircut or visited with friends at the café. They could then pick up some liver pills at the drugstore and if they had time, they could watch gasoline being poured into the engine at the 'gin'. Even with the town being named gasoline, they were sensible enough to use kerosene for their lighting. They got electricity just in time for the Great Depression (1929) and the Handbook tells us that the town only had one telephone for years.
Perhaps "Fireproof, Texas" should have been considered.
The town's gin burned in 1938 and shortly thereafter, the population dwindled to 20 persons. After WWII, the few remaining schoolchildren started attending classes in Quitaque and the post office closed in 1948.
GASOLINE, TEXAS. Gasoline, in southeastern Briscoe County, is on the site of an early line camp for cowboys. In 1903 several farm families built their homes in the vicinity, and they later drilled a water well on the site. Gasoline received its name from the gasoline engine that powered the community's cotton gin, built in 1906 or 1907. At that time such a power source was a novelty in the Panhandle.qv M. E. Tomson, who managed the gin, opened the community's first store and established a post office there in 1907. The next year W. A. Smith began a hardware and farm-implement business. A one-room school opened in 1908, was expanded to four rooms by 1920, and had four teachers and eleven grades by 1929. In its early years Gasoline had a drugstore, a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, and a cafe. Local church members met in the schoolhouse until it was torn down in 1926, when a new community building was built. Electricity replaced the town's kerosene lamps and carbide lights in 1929, but for years Gasoline had only one phone. A local literary society staged plays, and sports such as baseball and volleyball also supplied entertainment. The gin, the hub of the community, burned down in 1938 and was never rebuilt. In 1940 Gasoline reported twenty residents, and in 1946 its school district merged with the nearby Quitaque district. Gasoline's post office was discontinued in 1948. During the mid-1980s there remained several old farmhouses and the community building, in which yearly homecomings were held.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Briscoe County Historical Survey Committee, Footprints of Time in Briscoe County (Dallas: Taylor, 1976). Fred Tarpley, 1001 Texas Place Names (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).
H. Allen Anderson
QUITAQUE, TEXAS
Quitaque is on State Highway 86 in southeastern Briscoe County. The first settler in the area was the Comanchero trader José Piedad Tafoya, who operated a trading post on the site from 1865 to 1867, trading dry goods and ammunition to the Comanches for rustled livestock. In 1877 George Baker drove a herd of about 2,000 cattle to the Quitaque area, where he headquartered the Lazy F Ranch. Charles Goodnight bought the Lazy F in 1880 and introduced the name Quitaque, which he believed was the Indian word for "end of the trail." According to another legend the name was derived from two buttes in the area that resembled piles of horse manure, the real meaning of the Indian word. Another story is that the name was taken from the Quitaca Indians, whose name was translated by white settlers as "whatever one steals." The Quitaque Ranch covered parts of Briscoe, Floyd, and Hall counties. In 1882 a post office was established at ranch headquarters on Quitaque Creek in what is now Floyd County. By 1890 the town reported forty residents. When Briscoe County was organized in 1892 the post office was moved to the current location of Quitaque, and the townsite was surveyed and platted. Settlers had moved into the area by 1890. In 1891 A. R. Jago built a store there and the first cotton crop was harvested. A school was opened southwest of Quitaque in 1894 and moved to the townsite in 1902. In 1907 the Twilla Hotel, a local landmark, opened. By 1914 the town reported seventy-five residents, a bank, and three general stores. In the 1920s Amos Persons, president of the First National Bank of Quitaque, succeeded in getting the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway branch line routed through the town. In 1927 Quitaque was incorporated with P. P. Rumph as mayor, and on November 20, 1928, the first train arrived. By 1940 the town had affiliated schools, three churches, thirty-four businesses, and a population of 763. In 1961 Quitaque reported 586 residents and thirty-three businesses. In 1985 it had two city parks, a community center, and a fire station. Numerous Russian pines had been planted by citizens throughout the town as part of a state beautification program, and a City Homecoming Celebration was held every three years. In 1988 Quitaque had an estimated population of 700 and eleven businesses. In 1990 the population was 513.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Briscoe County Historical Survey Committee, Footprints of Time in Briscoe County (Dallas: Taylor, 1976). F. Stanley, Story of the Texas Panhandle Railroads (Borger, Texas: Hess, 1976).
H. Allen Anderson
FLOMOT, TEXAS. Flomot is on Farm roads 97 and 599 between the North Pease River and Quitaque Creek in northeast Motley County. Its name combines those of Floyd and Motley counties, since the original post office, opened in 1902, was built on the county line. The town developed with a school and store in the early 1890s. Early residents included A. J. Hudson, Clarence and Marvin Washington, Leonard Crowell, and H. D. Gilbert. In 1915 the post office was moved to W. R. Welch's home. In 1940 the town had ten stores and 200 residents. The population was 181 in 1980 and 1990.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Arthur Hecht, comp., Postal History in the Texas Panhandle (Canyon, Texas: Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1960). Eleanor Traweek, Of Such as These: A History of Motley County and Its Families (Quanah, Texas: Nortex, 1973).
More About Ruffus Wessley Patrick and Amanda Elizabeth Fry: Marriage: April 18, 1889
Children of Ruffus Wessley Patrick and Amanda Elizabeth Fry are:
Ruffus Wessley Patrick (b. April 08, 1859, d. December 22, 1927)
Notes for Ruffus Wessley Patrick: