Biography

They say you can never go home, which is especially true in my case since I was born in 1928 in a town called Signal Hill, located in the Panhandle of Texas. No need looking for it on a map because the only thing that exists there any more are a few crumbling foundations and some rusting pipes sticking out of the ground. It was founded in 1926, grew to 12,000 people in four years and was completely gone in four more. The last building standing, the old bank, was torn down and the bricks salvaged in 1934.

It was founded by a land promoter who envisioned a place for the new oil rich from the Texas Panhandle to build their mansions, as he had seen in Signal Hill, California. However, greed got the best of him and the $200 lots ended up being 25' wide by 80' deep. Pretty hard to build much of a mansion on a lot that size. The only thing the buyers had going for them was they got the mineral rights when they bought the lot. Most of the people who bought lots started drilling for oil even before they set up a tent or built a shack to live in. When all the holes started coming in as dusters, they just picked up and left. My dad put our two room house on skids and dragged it three miles with a team of mules to a section of land he had bought for a dollar an acre a mile east of Stinnett. I was one of six members in the smallest class to ever graduate from Stinnett High School.

I learned