Looking Back at Wastella

The Wastella grain elevator and scale house. (Wastella photos by Tommy Meredith)

In 1907, land developers proposed a new town eight miles northwest of Roscoe that would have a station on the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railway, which was then being built from Roscoe to Snyder. Will Neely, who owned a ranch there, said he would provide the land for the new town so long as it was named after his daughter, Wastella, and the developers agreed. Dr. J. W. Young, Sr., discusses the town in It All Comes Back, his book of memoirs of early day Roscoe, published in 1962. The following can be found on pages 51-52 of that book. I present it here just as he wrote it.

Even in the earlier days Texas had its land scandals. I remember—not with pleasure—the case of Wastella town-site. The developers of this area used all the sale “gimmicks” of the day. They had a big auction, complete with plenty of barbecue and red lemonade. This was located on the town-site eight miles northwest of Roscoe. I went over to see about it. When I arrived, I found a large section of land laid off for business lots and an even larger space for residential property. The promoters had built five small residences. (Years later I bought one five-room house for one hundred and fifty dollars and moved it on a farm I had bought in the neighborhood.) After the auction was over, a bank building was built, five grocery stores, a lumber yard, and a blacksmith shop.

I was asked to move there and was offered a year’s board free and horse feed for a year. They told me there would be several thousand people located in Wastella within a few months. I did not move as I was doing fairly well and the old timers told me there was no water near the business section. However, those who did not know the water situation paid as much as eighteen hundred dollars for business lots. Many investors paid a small amount down and never did pay the rest. Wastella was never enough of a city to become even a ghost town in later years. It just never did develop.

Two friends of mine, Mr. McMinn and Mr. McCauley, went to Wastella before the auction to look over the “town.” They saw one small boy in the front yard of the only home, chewing tobacco. They asked the boy where Wastella was. He spit out a string of tobacco juice and then said, “She’s in the back yard doing the washing.” The town was named after “Miss Wastella,” and I do not remember her last name. The other houses were built after this visit was made.

Early RS&P plat for the City of Wastella. (Click image to enlarge)

Editor’s Note: Now only a ghost town, Wastella never really had a chance despite the early efforts to establish a community there. It did get a post office and in its early years also had a couple of stores, a hotel, and a school. It also had a depot and was a scheduled passenger and freight stop on the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railway.

However, as Dr. Young mentions in his account, it ultimately failed because of its lack of potable water. Water wells drilled there produced only undrinkable gyp water, so people had to haul in water or collect it in cisterns. By the 1950s, only a grain elevator and a country store remained. The store, for many years run by Adolph Villegas, remained open until around 1990, when it too finally closed. According to the Texas State Handbook online, the population in 1980 and 1990 was 13 and in 2000 only 4.

Richardson School, ca. 1906. It was about two miles south of Wastella but moved there in 1908 after the station was built. The teacher, Mr. Stevens, is at far left.

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ROSCOE HIGH TRACK TEAMS OPEN SEASONS THIS WEEK

Bonnie Wilkinson does the triple jump.

Roscoe Collegiate High track teams open their seasons this week. The JV Plowboys kick off their season tomorrow at the Anson Tiger Relays while the varsity Plowboys and Plowgirls open theirs on Friday at the ACU High School Invitational in Abilene.

The Anson meet starts at 3:30pm tomorrow and the ACU meet at 12:00 on Friday.

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OIL WELL BEING DRILLED AT YOUNG FARM ESTATES

The new well on Young Farm Estates. (Photo by Carl Childers)

An oil well is being drilled next to US 84 on Young Farm Estates land. The derrick went up yesterday.

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“MAGIC MIKE” AT LUMBERYARD SATURDAY

Magic Mike Live.

The Lumberyard begins its 2019 season with the celebrated dance troupe Magic Mike Live in a “Ladies’ Night Out” performance Saturday night. This traveling group of male dancers puts on a show based loosely on the movie Magic Mike, starring Channing Tatum. The show is advertised as featuring “thirteen of the hottest and most talented men in the country performing in front of, behind, above, and all around the audience” and a show “where women can feel what it’s like to exist in a world where their desires are heard and they are treated like goddesses.”

This male revue performance involves stripping, but not in the way one might expect. There is no nudity or jackhammer gyrations. Instead, the show features dancing, singing, piano playing, drumming and aerial acrobatics. There are also lap dances and plenty of audience participation, including foot massages, slow dances, and abs offered for stroking.

For reservations or more information, contact the Lumberyard during work hours at 325-766-2457.

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WEATHER REPORT: COOL, WINDY

Monday morning's sunrise.

The weather was once again mixed this week. Temperatures were temperate with highs in the 50s and 60s and lows ranging from 30° to 40°F, but the most notable changes were in the wind. Saturday was nasty with dusty red skies, high winds of up to 35mph and gusts up to 48. Monday’s skies didn’t look quite so bad, but winds reached the 25mph range with gusts up to 33mph, and yesterday’s winds varied from high to light under sunny skies. The predictions for rain didn’t ever materialize into anything measurable.

Today’s weather should be a continuation of what we’ve been getting but with lighter winds. The high should be about 60° today, 62° tomorrow, and all the way up to 78° Friday. A cold front arrives on Saturday, though, with the low dropping to 28° and on Sunday all the way down to 16°, which will be the coldest we've had this winter, cold enough to freeze the buds off any early bloomers. Sunday’s high will be only 42° and Monday’s only 38°, so we’ve still got some more cold weather to endure before we’re done, as March apparently wants to come in like a lion.

There is no rain in the forecast.

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