Whiteface
Cochran County, Texas
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Whiteface
Whiteface is located in east central Cochran County and was founded in 1925 and is named after C. C. Slaughter’s Whiteface Camp and Pasture, which in turn was named for the whiteface Hereford cattle C. C. Slaughter pastured there in 1897.
The name of “Whiteface” was originally given to a settlement in 1924 that was staked off by Ira P. DeLoach and was located approximately five miles southwest of present-day Pettit in Hockley County. Santa Fe traded DeLoach two lots in exchange for the use of the name Whiteface.
The Santa Fe Rail Road began laying tracks through Hockley and Cochran counties in 1924 and planned to have a station every five miles. Originally they surveyed a town half a mile east of present-day Whiteface, inside Hockley County. However, Hockley County could not afford to have another school in the county and said students in the area would have to go to school at Cobleland and furnish their own transportation.
J. C. Whaley offered some of his land just inside Cochran County for the town and school. A well located at the site made a convenient stop for the railroad and soon work began on a depot and residences for the agent and foreman.
The first family in Whiteface was the C. W. Word family who moved to the site in 1925 where they lived in a tent and furnished meals to the railroad workers.
C. W. Word worked to establish a post office, but was met with opposition due to post offices already existing in Levelland and Lehman. He finally succeeded through, and the post office opened on December 15, 1925 with his wife as postmistress. In January 1926 the Words had built two buildings on 2nd Street in Whiteface. In the front part of one of the buildings they operated the post office and a grocery store and lived in the back part. Out of the other building they operated a laundry.
Whaley built a one-room school building that was ready for use for the fall semester in 1925 and opened with fourteen student enrolled and Mrs. Cooper as teacher. The following year a brick school building was built and was ready a few months after the start of the 1926-27 school year. The one-room school building was moved to the corner of 3rd and Filmore where it was used by the Methodist, Baptist and Church of Christ until each was able to have their own building. Eventually it became the Baptist Church.
The Whiteface Hotel (now the museum) was built in 1926. That same year Mr. Flanagan built a Texaco filling station with a two room house behind it. It was rumored that gambling took place at the Flanagan house and that people were warned not to get in the game when Flanagan’s wife played as she would win all the money.
The train from Lubbock would come through Whiteface in the afternoon and spent the night in Bledsoe before returning to Lubbock in the morning. Resident’s of Whiteface would often take the train back to Lubbock to conduct business in the three or four hours before the train returned to Whiteface. At this time the roads were in poor condition and the train was they best means of transportation to Lubbock. The paved road between Whiteface and Levelland was completed until 1928.
Fred Snyder built cattle pens just south of the railroad, where cattle was fed to fatten them up before shipping them out. This gave a number of young men, fresh out of high school, employment.
The first light plant was located behind the drug store built by the Smith family, who sold electricity to the people of Whiteface until Cochran Power and Light came in.
The first water system, owned by C. W. Stephenson, had so little water pressure the water was off as much as it was on and at times it was red with sand that had gotten in the line. The city purchased a water system from J. J. Kerby in 1952 and installed a sewer system.
The natural gas system was purchased by the city in 1950.
Whiteface was incorporated on April 9, 1945. L. L. Drumheller was elected as the first mayor and James C. Casey and R. V. Hudgens as the city’s first commissioners. The first city meeting was held April 19, 1945 in the office of the Cameron Lumber Yard as there was no city office at that time.
The volunteer fire department also began in 1945. In the summer of 1954 city commissioner L. U. Thompson and city manager Truman Swinney took train to Ohio to pick up the city’s first fire truck which was purchased by the county. Until then the a jeep and trailer pulling a reel of water hose served as the city fire truck.
The city received its first ambulance in 1971 from the county and volunteers went to school to get their certifications to run the ambulance.
Girlstown was started by Amelia Anthony in her home in Buffalo Gap, Texas in 1939 with a group of six homeless girls. Miss Anthony moved nine girls to Whiteface in July 1949 and in 1954 the Duggans donated land eight miles south of Whiteface to Girlstown. The campus closed down in 2010.
The rail line was abandoned in 1983.
Whiteface reached its peak population of 600 in 1941, by 1978 it was estimated to have a population of 365. That number increased to 463 in 1980 and 465 by 2000. The 2020 census showed a population of 414.
If you know of a town or community in Cochran County that is not listed here, or if you have photos, maps, documents or stories you would like to share, please, email me!