It's called the "XIT" Museum and was actually pretty interesting. It seems that in 1876 the Texas Legislature wanted to build a new Capitol building in Austin, and they set aside 3 million acres of land in the panhandle adjacent to the New Mexico line. There intention was to sell the land in small tracts and use the proceeds to build a new capitol building. By 1879 is became apparent that it would take a very long time to sell the land in small parcels, and they sold the land to a group of investors, which organized it as the XIT Ranch, all 3 million acres of it. The ranch remained in operation until 1912. The town of Dalhart was established on the ranch land when the railroad was built through the town, and the museum housed a number of artifacts from the very early 1900's, around the time of the town's founding. Here are a couple pics:
It was worth the stop, if only once!
I headed out of Dalhart on US54 north toward the town of Guyman. You've heard of the city of Texarkana, which straddles the Texas-Arkansas Line? Well...I went through the "city" to Texhoma, which straddles the Texas-Oklahoma line. I think it's a little smaller than Texarkana, though:
At Guyman, OK I headed east on US412 toward Woodward, OK, where I stopped at the Plains and Pioneers Museum. They had a nice building:
About 30 miles west of Enid,OK the countryside began to look a lot like Arizona and New Mexico:
You can't really see it in the pictures, but the buttes and the soil throughout the area were bright red...looked like Georgia.
I'm in Enid for the night and will be heading east to Springfield, MO in the morning.
Miles today: 351
Total: 7,225