So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away - Matador
January 20, 2016 8:36 AM Subscribe
Matador, Texas is a town on borrowed time. If you're not from there or one of the few similarly sinking small towns scattered across the Great Plains region, you would almost definitely not know that it exists. Its population has fallen from 740 to just 607 in 10 years according to a 2010 census. Of course, it wasn't always that way. A true Texas round-up of links to celebrate the Matador that was and still is before it is gone.
The town of Matador was founded (fraudulently) as the seat of Motley County in 1891 around Matador Ranch, which is, surprisingly, still in operation. The ranch's influence over the nearly every aspect of town politics was finally bucked around 1900 when politicians from neighboring counties moved in and occupied positions previously held by ranch employees. Since then, the power and size of the ranch has only continued to wane.
Glimpses of Matador around 1975 can be seen as a location in the film Mackintosh and T.J., one of Roy Rogers last. (Shout out in the credits.)
This site is a great resource for historical and relatively current pictures of the town and its buildings. The population of Matador reached its apex in 1940, and has since declined sharply. It is no longer a question of if, but when Matador will cease to exist. This is a reality that many rural communities in this part of Texas now face. One that many already have.
The town of Matador was founded (fraudulently) as the seat of Motley County in 1891 around Matador Ranch, which is, surprisingly, still in operation. The ranch's influence over the nearly every aspect of town politics was finally bucked around 1900 when politicians from neighboring counties moved in and occupied positions previously held by ranch employees. Since then, the power and size of the ranch has only continued to wane.
Glimpses of Matador around 1975 can be seen as a location in the film Mackintosh and T.J., one of Roy Rogers last. (Shout out in the credits.)
This site is a great resource for historical and relatively current pictures of the town and its buildings. The population of Matador reached its apex in 1940, and has since declined sharply. It is no longer a question of if, but when Matador will cease to exist. This is a reality that many rural communities in this part of Texas now face. One that many already have.
I want to take that location-in-Motley-County wikipedia image, blow it up, title it "Matador," and try to get it into a museum somewhere.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:50 AM on January 20, 2016
posted by Navelgazer at 9:50 AM on January 20, 2016
@Navelgazer: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27822510@N00/45867464/
posted by mikewebkist at 10:00 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mikewebkist at 10:00 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Whoa, this is something I'd never have expected to see on the Blue. I spent a happy summer in 1975 in Spur, about 40 miles south. Just drove through the area again, for the first time in 40 years, a few months ago. It had changed very little except for hundreds of new wind turbines and lots of new high tension power lines. The fields of sunflowers and the fossilized, mostly empty 1920s commercial buildings in the centers of towns hadn't changed a bit.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:02 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:02 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
This is a reality that many rural communities in this part of Texas now face throughout the US have faced for decades.
I remember visiting old towns in Missouri with my grandmother in the 1990s, when she took me, my brother and our cousin to see old towns where our relatives of past generations had lived. There were so many little towns of less than a thousand people, and it felt like half of the houses in those communities were vacant and falling down. We were California boys, used to cities full of people, where there was a significant housing demand, not what appeared to be an over-abundance. My brother and cousin had the grand plan: "making the Midwest GRAND again," focusing on getting these communities up to at least 1,000 people in their communities.
But there's just nothing there anymore. No reason to stay, besides the fact your family owns the land. Even then, if there are no jobs in the area, a house isn't enough to keep you in place. In neighboring New Mexico, there are counties with less than a thousand people. It's even harder to subsist when you're living in such an arid area.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I remember visiting old towns in Missouri with my grandmother in the 1990s, when she took me, my brother and our cousin to see old towns where our relatives of past generations had lived. There were so many little towns of less than a thousand people, and it felt like half of the houses in those communities were vacant and falling down. We were California boys, used to cities full of people, where there was a significant housing demand, not what appeared to be an over-abundance. My brother and cousin had the grand plan: "making the Midwest GRAND again," focusing on getting these communities up to at least 1,000 people in their communities.
But there's just nothing there anymore. No reason to stay, besides the fact your family owns the land. Even then, if there are no jobs in the area, a house isn't enough to keep you in place. In neighboring New Mexico, there are counties with less than a thousand people. It's even harder to subsist when you're living in such an arid area.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm surprised to see this on the Blue too. My in-laws currently live in Matador, so I've been there a few times. They, apparently along with almost everyone else, are planning on leaving.
It's not a complete ghost town, not yet. The downtown has a small grocery store (more than a lot of small towns can boast), a hotel, and a library. And a restaurant, I think. There are a lot more storefronts, but I've never seen them open for business. The one historic home in town is being fixed up.
But there are a lot of abandoned homes, including some pretty nice ones. For that matter, the old school building was just locked up and a new school building erected across the street from it. The old building—a great old pile of bricks probably built by the WPA—is still there, just disused and gradually falling apart. A retirement home was built fairly recently, apparently catering to the only people who won't leave. It operated for a few years, shut down, and was recently bought and put back into service.
posted by adamrice at 10:27 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's not a complete ghost town, not yet. The downtown has a small grocery store (more than a lot of small towns can boast), a hotel, and a library. And a restaurant, I think. There are a lot more storefronts, but I've never seen them open for business. The one historic home in town is being fixed up.
But there are a lot of abandoned homes, including some pretty nice ones. For that matter, the old school building was just locked up and a new school building erected across the street from it. The old building—a great old pile of bricks probably built by the WPA—is still there, just disused and gradually falling apart. A retirement home was built fairly recently, apparently catering to the only people who won't leave. It operated for a few years, shut down, and was recently bought and put back into service.
posted by adamrice at 10:27 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Interesting that this was posted right around the same time the Iowa church FPP was. Trend?
posted by kevinbelt at 10:29 AM on January 20, 2016
posted by kevinbelt at 10:29 AM on January 20, 2016
Texas (and everywhere else) has been urbanizing for at least 100 years. Living near people has it's benefits.
posted by mikewebkist at 10:31 AM on January 20, 2016
posted by mikewebkist at 10:31 AM on January 20, 2016
You know what a lot of these dying towns have that you mostly don't find in the west? Architecture. Lord, they don't make 'em like that anymore.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:35 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by entropicamericana at 10:35 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
i moved back to my home town in a neighboring state and it's weird to me to drive through places i used to live, that used to have town names, that no longer do. they've been unincorporated or taken up by neighboring towns, or otherwise just ceased to exist. it makes sense, but it's still sad to see. land is cheap as hell out there though.
posted by nadawi at 12:03 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 12:03 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
mikewebkist: Texas (and everywhere else) has been urbanizing for at least 100 years. Living near people has it's benefits.
But how many people do you really want (or need) to live near? It's not just urbanization with everyone moving to the closest big city because that's where things happen, it's also the loss of small, local-scale businesses and jobs. Big cities aren't for everyone. From my uninformed viewpoint, it seems like something of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario - did the businesses fail because the people left (for jobs/ families/ opportunities elsewhere), or did the people leave because the businesses failed (because of competition with chain stores, who then left when the local market shrank)? I'm sure each town has/had its tipping point.
In the Midwest, driving around felt like communities were placed by shooting buckshot at a map and starting towns where there were holes, because at one time everyone worked on a small-ish farm, which turned into fewer, more efficient large farms. Compare that to the Southwest, where towns are spaced a horse-ride apart, often along whatever passes for a river in that part of the country, but now the highway allows people to get around 10 times as far in a car.
Random anecdotes regarding living near people -- I've the same stories from communities of two different scales - "folks go to the closest big(ger) town for a certain level of medical care." People in the small town travel to the mid-sized town, and people in the mid-sized town travel to the bigger town, which isn't that far from the biggest town in the state.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:32 PM on January 20, 2016
But how many people do you really want (or need) to live near? It's not just urbanization with everyone moving to the closest big city because that's where things happen, it's also the loss of small, local-scale businesses and jobs. Big cities aren't for everyone. From my uninformed viewpoint, it seems like something of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario - did the businesses fail because the people left (for jobs/ families/ opportunities elsewhere), or did the people leave because the businesses failed (because of competition with chain stores, who then left when the local market shrank)? I'm sure each town has/had its tipping point.
In the Midwest, driving around felt like communities were placed by shooting buckshot at a map and starting towns where there were holes, because at one time everyone worked on a small-ish farm, which turned into fewer, more efficient large farms. Compare that to the Southwest, where towns are spaced a horse-ride apart, often along whatever passes for a river in that part of the country, but now the highway allows people to get around 10 times as far in a car.
Random anecdotes regarding living near people -- I've the same stories from communities of two different scales - "folks go to the closest big(ger) town for a certain level of medical care." People in the small town travel to the mid-sized town, and people in the mid-sized town travel to the bigger town, which isn't that far from the biggest town in the state.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:32 PM on January 20, 2016
The whole rural US. The same thing is happening in New England as well.
posted by epanalepsis at 1:58 PM on January 20, 2016
posted by epanalepsis at 1:58 PM on January 20, 2016
Rural depopulation is a result of Nixon's SecAg Earl Butts infatuation with big ag. "Get big or get out." was his catch phrase.
posted by ridgerunner at 12:52 AM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ridgerunner at 12:52 AM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:50 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]