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About Gray County
Gray County is located in the
central part of the Panhandle and the eastern edge of the High Plains.
Its center point is at 35°25' north latitude and 100°49' west
longitude. Lefors is located near the center of the county, and Pampa,
the county seat, is about twelve miles away in the northwestern corner.
Pampa is approximately sixty miles northeast of Amarillo on U.S.
Highway 60. The county occupies 934 square miles of level prairie and
rolling river break. Formed in 1876 out of the Bexar District, the
county was named for Peter W. Gray, a lawyer and politician of the
Republic of Texas and Civil War eras.
Ranchers began to reach the
region as early as 1877. In 1878 a well-known local rancher, Perry
LeFors, established a small ranch on Cantonment Creek. Other small
ranching operations developed in the eastern part of the county. For
the rest of the nineteenth century Gray County remained the domain of
cattle ranchers.
By the turn of the century,
farmers began to appear in the county. The county population grew to
3,405 by 1910 and 4,663 by 1920. The newly arriving farmers settled in
the western and northern parts of the county, planting wheat, corn, and
grain sorghums on fertile, newly broken lands. Farming and ranching
dominated the county's economy for a short time, and then major
petroleum discoveries greatly altered the county.
By the 1980s the great bulk of
the county's population lived in urban areas served by the highway and
rail system. Pampa had 19,959 residents in 1980, and McLean had 849 and
Lefors 656. Other communities were Alanreed, Kings Mill, Laketon, and
Hoover. The modern economy of the county depends upon a healthy mix of
oil, petrochemicals, farming, and ranching.
A More
Detailed History of Gray County
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Search The Gray County Page
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Gray County
Research News!
On a May 2009 visit to Gray and surrounding Texas panhandle counties
for genealogical research, the former Gray County TXGenWeb Coordinator,
Marie Bartholomew, completed numerous projects which she has
generously donated to this Gray County website.
She photographed 200+ tombstones for several cemeteries,
including Fairview Cemetery
in Pampa, TX, and also photographed
approximately 500 pages of the Fairview Cemetery roster books.
The tombstone photos are being prepared for presentation on this
website and will be added as they are completed.
The photos of the roster books will also be added in the future.
Along with the cemetery photos, Marie sent us a copy of the 1938 Pampa
High School yearbook, and that will be uploaded soon. Finally, she
obtained a 1902-1982 anniversary edition of The Pampa News, and
excerpts will be included as they are transcribed. She has also
graciously volunteered to add her name to the Lookups page for
Fairview Cemetery.
Our sincere thanks to Marie for the valuable research material she has
contributed
to the Gray County TXGenWeb Project page over the years!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fairview
Cemetery
Photos (work in
progress)
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To post your Queries, Biographies,
Bible Records, Deeds,
Obituaries, Pensions, and Wills, please visit the new Rootsweb
Message Board for Gray County, Texas.
Gray County Message Board
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World
War
I
and
World
War
II
Texas Panhandle Casualties
and Missing in Action
World War I
World War II
Source:
Amarillo
Globe-News
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NARA
--
Access
to
Military
Service
and
Pension
Records
The National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) is the official repository for records of
military personnel who have been discharged from the U.S. Air Force,
Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard.
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 Texas
Panhandle
Ranches
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Ranches.org
is home for several
Texas panhandle ranches.
Included on the site, which is
maintained by rancher Jay O'Brien,
are biographical
sketches,
ranch histories, and information
about the McLean
Feedyard.
Ranches included
are:
The Swamp--O'Brien Ranch,
the JA, The
Circle,
and the Exell Ranch.
Biographies
include:
John G. O'Brien,
G.W.
O'Brien,
Will
O'Brien, Exie
Eagan
O'Brien,
James
Christopher
Paul,
and Howard Paul.
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Visit the
page!
The Gray County Sheriff's Office
has recently completed a project
to gather photos and biographies of
County Sheriffs over the last 98 years.
Officers featured
include the first female sheriff in
the State of Texas, and Otis Hendrix, the only
Gray County police officer to be killed in the line of duty.
The collection is currently on
display in Pampa,
and Sheriff Don Copeland has graciously allowed us
to feature their work on this website.
Our thanks to Sheriff Copeland
and Deputy Sheriff Gary Noblett
for making this possible.
Earliest Texas Panhandle Sheriffs
A follow-up
project to the
Early Sheriffs of Gray County
is to gather photos and biographies of the
very first sheriffs of the Texas Panhandle.
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Visit
the Gray County Sheriff's Office webpage!
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Gray County Mailing
List
Topics of genealogical
and historical
significance to Gray County are discussed,
as well as queries of local interest.
To subscribe, send the
command subscribe
(and nothing else) to
TXGRAY-L-REQUEST@rootsweb.com.
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Neighboring Counties
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County Links
We
maintain eight Texas panhandle counties for the TXGenWeb Project, as
well as three more counties and five Special Project pages for the
OKGenWeb Project.
If your
families spread westward over the past century and a
half like mine did, you might have need of some research
we've done for the other counties.
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If
you are interested in sponsoring a Texas County in the TXGenWeb
Project, please visit the Orphan Counties page.
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If you like what you've seen here, please cast
your vote.
County
of
the
Month
Thank you!
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Bluebonnets - Texas State Flower
© 1997-2012 by the Gray County
Coordinator
for the TXGenWeb Project
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