A short history of Hereford
Hereford was founded as "Blue Water" in 1899 after the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway connected Amarillo to Farwell. After a town already named Blue Water was discovered, residents renamed the town "Hereford" in honor of the cattle of the local ranchers and the city, Hereford, in the United Kingdom.
In 1975, popular high school teacher Wayne Woodward was fired for his efforts to establish a local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Woodward won a subsequent legal suit, that gained national attention, against the Hereford Independent School District. The events were documented in the 2022 book You Will Never Be One of Us by Timothy P. Bowman.
A rich Western heritage includes the Las Escarbadas ranch house of the XIT Ranch, once located southwest of Hereford. The restored historic structure can now be seen at the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The Deaf Smith County Historical Museum at 400 Sampson Street in Hereford offers indoor and outdoor exhibits on the settlement of West Texas.
Hereford was once known as the "Windmill City" due to its many windmills supplying fresh water from the Ogallala Aquifer.
Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Hereford, Texas, revision 1377801484 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.