Pioneer settlers in the early 1870s built adobe huts and irrigation ditches along area creeks. After 1875, village became a supply and shipping point for several huge Texas ranches, including the famed XIT and LIT. Bustling town was known as the Cowboy Capital of the Plains; became county seat when Oldham County was organized in 1880. The famous and infamousfrom Kit Carson to Billy the Kidonce strode its rough plank sidewalks. But as with many Texas cow towns, decline set in when the open range was girded with fences, and the railroad bypassed the site. It was deserted by the 1930s.