National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, TX

Saturday, March 24, 2012 Day 286

We left this morning right after breakfast, and took little highways all the way to Lubbock. Harris had just picked a place on the map that was to the east, and then looked up things to do there. One thing that came up was the National Ranching Heritage Center.

This turned out to be a great place to visit. It is a unique museum and historical park comprised of almost 50 authentic, furnished ranch buildings and structures. They represent the history of ranching from the 1780s to the 1950s, and have been moved here mostly from other places around Texas.
The first one was Lost Corralitos built in 1780. It has no windows, only six slots in the walls for rifles.

This was an example of a half dug-out house, built in 1888.

Judy enjoyed seeing old quilts on some of the beds inside some houses.

And of course, two old school teachers had to have a picture of the Bairfield Schoolhouse built in 1890.

These doors are for a coach house. Notice the small openings at the bottom? They were for the barn cats, who helped keep the rodent population in check.

Another interior, but we forget which building!

This building, called Las Escarbadas, 1886, was a division headquarters for the XIT ranch...which had over 3 million acres, at the time the largest fenced ranch in the US.

This house was built in 1904. Because they didn't have much wood, they used parts of Yucca plants for the walls. They built double walls and filled the space between with dirt.



There are many different types of buildings, from homes to schoolhouses, to carriage houses, sheep hospital shed, bunkhouse, etc...we enjoyed touring the grounds. (It did get a little hot for Judy, at a high today of 87 degrees.)
We left here and drove to the RV park called Post View, just outside the town of Post. Harris was happy once more because he was able to get wifi even though the RV park didn't offer it.

Total miles driven today = 225 (Diesel was relatively cheap at 3.85 in West Lubbock; the cheapest it's been on the entire trip)