In 1901, James William Lochridge owned a farm southeast of the current location of Petrolia, Texas. About this time there was a drought and remembering that his home place in Georgia had water wells, decided to drill one here. Enlisting the help of a local man with a...

The map shown below, is on the inside cover of Katherine Douthett’s book “Romance and Dim Trails”, and was given her by Mrs. St. Andrew Myers. This map locates Fort Burnham at the mouth of the Little Wichita River in northeastern Clay County. An old manuscript written...

The St. Elmo Hotel was built in 1892, a 3 story brick building on the corner of Bridge and Omega streets, by Colonel Pete Snearly and his wife Catherine McCuen Snearly. Catherine’s mother Margaret, had run the City Hotel, a wooden structure that the Snearlys moved to...

Clay County was first organized in 1857 from Cooke County, and later abandoned because of Indian raids. It was reorganized in 1873. First taxes; .05 cents per $1000 on real & personal property for roads and bridges; .10 cents per thousand to build the courthouse...

Sometimes an old newspaper article helps to uncover a forgotten piece of Henrietta history. On December 19, 1889. Mr. John Eustus sold a piece of property located at the corner of Bridge Street and Omega Street in Henrietta, to two men named Squires and Snearly. It...