People & Families of Moore County

Benjamin Thomas Ansley moved from the Hill Country to Moore County because he "liked the land and he liked the men who were settling it." He and his brothers and sisters established businesses in Moore County -- a mercantile store, a freighting company and a small bank.
Anderson Blacksmith shop was owned by an immigrant from Norway, A. L. Anderson. He came to America at age 16 and moved to Moore County in 1902. The blacksmith shop was an integral part of early Moore County history.
Little stories can tell a lot about history. In the book, The Windswept Land, a couple of events in the W. F. Bennett family tell about life that was much different than it is today. The stories were told by two of the Bennett children, Verna Bennett Swaggert and Charlie Bennett.
It took a lot of vision for a young man of 20 to leave his family, travel over 300 miles to come to Moore County in 1900. Bob Powell was such a man. He came to this wide-open county and stayed to help shape Moore County.
The love of the land was evident in the Howard and Wendell Bose family. It started back in Germany with their grandmother, Anna Marie, who moved to Russia from Germany to find land. Her search for land and a home eventually led her son, the Bose Brothers, to the Middlewell Community in Moore County.
R. L. Crump earned the name "Boss" by leading a cattle drive to Moore County. He stayed, worked as a cowboy, a freighter and rancher, leaving his mark on the growing county.
One of the buildings downtown has a name on the top -- "J. T. Brown" named after the man who came to Moore County with his family in 1901.
A couple of names from the late 1880's stand out in the history of the area -- Old Tascosa and Frenchy McCormick.
While driving on Christmas Eve in 1924, J. W. Fowlston saw an deserted oil derrick outlined by a full moon and decided to use that vision of a derrick as his cattle brand. He owned no cattle at the time, but had plans to make his vision a reality.
A handwritten note on the side of a document led to find "the rest of the story."  The story tells of John Cook, probably the first white man to come to Moore County.
Marshall Cator and his love for cattle led him to create a cattle empire in the Texas Panhandle. Even when his hearing and eyesight were failing, he still helped with cattle round-ups and branding.
Sam Russell was well known by most people in Dumas beginning in the 1940's until his death in 1972.
Jeremiah and Elizabeth Portman came to Moore County in 1891 to operate a hotel and find a dead cowboy.