Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Shafter Lake
October 9, 2002

Shafter Lake keeps demanding my attention. In the second column of this series I briefly mentioned it and in my series of natural history columns over the past three years I have mentioned the mythological giant salamander that lives deep in its alkali mud and emerges to terrorize unsuspecting visitors on dark and stormy nights. Over the past few months little tidbits of information have come my way, furthering a personal interest until I finally had to visit recently.

On the Internet I found a September of 1999 story Julie Breaux wrote for the Odessa American about Shafter Lake, and in it, she mentioned a master’s thesis by Krista Findley who later became a history teacher at Andrews High School. I found the thesis in the Andrews County Library. The story that emerges is fascinating and should be part of the general knowledge of all Llaneros.

In 1650 Herman Martin and Diego de Castillo were the first people of European descent to visit the area. They were on their way to visit the Jumano villages on the Concho River, in response to stories of the apparition of the Blue Nun. Henry Moore, a buffalo hunter dug a well and lived for a time a dozen miles to the southwest in 1872. Colonel William R. Shafter “discovered” the lake in 1875, (led there by Seminole-Negro scouts) while searching for Mow-way and other Comanches that had not resigned themselves to reservation life. Government cartographers named the lake for him. He reported that lush grasses surrounded the lake, perfect for ranching.

In 1886 the Cowdens began ranching in the sandy country a little further west and for the next decade only four ranchers utilized the land of Andrews county. In 1895 the laws were changed, allowing more folks to settle. Land developers by the names of Powers and Pierce, who had successfully created a town further east, bought up the land around the lake. In promotional literature they promised unlimited agricultural opportunities to anyone willing live in “The City of a Thousand Wonders.”

The land promoters built a bank, a hotel, post office, a grocery store and a schoolhouse. A grist mill was established, and every Monday people came from eastern New Mexico and the surrounding counties to have their corn ground. Folks came from all over the United States in the hopes of having their own land. Ms. Findley quotes an old timer that said that up to two or three hundred people eventually settled the area. Supplies had to come fifty miles from Midland, which was a five-day round trip by wagon. Mail and some supplies were brought by a Model T truck, and the trip from Midland took all day. A passenger usually rode along to open the gates in the ranch fences.

Some of the buildings were built with brick manufactured from the gravel and sand of the salt lake. The Irwin House, still standing and a State Historical Medallion home, is made of the brick. Easily seen from FM 1967, it has a lovely pale tan-gray color. (To get to Shafter Lake turn off of U. S. Highway 385 eight miles north of Andrews.) Concrete made from materials from the same source provided the foundations for some of the buildings as well as a circular water tank. I was fascinated by a photograph of the water tank in Ms. Findley’s thesis. It had a two-part lid covering it, protecting the water supply from birds, bugs, and dust. Along the county road to the Shafter Lake Cemetery, the crumbling outlines of the tank and some foundations still remain among the mesquite, saltbush, and lotebush that have filled the landscape in the intervening years.

Ms. Findley’s thesis and the County History album put together by the local historical association are full of vignettes that help a person to imagine life at the town. People tell of picnics, barbecues, and dances. A magazine writer by the name of Percy St. Clair visited, bringing several automobiles to stage races along the shores of the lake. He stayed in the area for several months, seeking stories of Western life for Eastern city folks. A dapper man, wearing the latest fashions, St. Clair loved to play golf on a course laid out along the bluffs on the north side of the lake. An errant bull wandering loose from a passing trail herd spotted him and charged. St. Clair jumped off the bluffs and rolled down to the lake. Other players had to climb mesquite trees on the course. (I did not see any mesquites big enough to climb when I visited.)

Powers and Pierce, in an effort to attract more interest in their city, offered a free lot to anyone who could establish a home there by a certain date. Bob Means, who worked for the Five Wells Ranch, decided to take them up on the offer. He bought a house somewhere and loaded it up on wagons, but he broke down a couple miles south of town. He hurried on to town, but his request for a deadline extension was refused. They angered the wrong person – he talked to every resident of the county and thanks to his efforts Andrews was chosen over Shafter Lake as the county seat in the 1910 county-seat election.

People began moving away. One house was moved to the town of Fasken in eastern Andrews County. (It was one of two houses ever at the town, which was another promoter’s dream town complete with infrastructure.) At least one resident of Andrews, a descendant of one of the settlers, still pays taxes on a Shafter Lake townsite lot. In 1916 a tornado leveled most of the town of Shafter Lake. The post office clerk hid in the bank vault and surprised everybody by emerging unscathed from the wreckage. The Shafter Lake school remained in operation until 1929, serving the children of the local ranchers. In 1940 it was torn down and its material brought to Andrews where it became part of the Andrews High School.

The day I visited I saw four people in an hour: a pumper and a tanker truck driver headed to nearby oilwells, a Department of Public Safety trooper, and an individual on a motorcycle out for a leisurely drive who stopped at the historical marker on the southeast side of the lake. As I explored the area, I collected Jimmyweed seeds along the road at the base of the steep gyp loess hills on the east side of the lake. In the draw north of the lake, I photographed false grape covering hackberry trees in the fashion of kudzu in the southern United States. The only blight on an otherwise perfect afternoon was the stench of sour gas emanating from the nearby oil wells.