Randall County Historical Commission

05/18/2026

04/22/2026

Let’s light up the Courthouse! Support the effort to light up the center piece of the Randall County community. https://secure.qgiv.com/for/illuminatecanyon

04/16/2026

Our next meeting will be this Thursday, April 16th at 6:30.

04/09/2026

Repping Randall County at the Real Places Convention Texas Historical Commission in Austin, TX

02/24/2026

💈The Buffalo Barber Shop: 100 years of Canyon History ✂️

Step back to 1920 — when a shave and a haircut cost two bits and the Buffalo Barber Shop first opened its doors in Canyon, Texas. For more than a century, this shop has kept Randall County looking sharp — from early West Texas State students to hometown football heroes.

In 1927, barber Arthur F. Taylor returned to Canyon after years traveling the Northwest, declaring it “the best place” and resuming work at Buffalo. By 1933, George Taylor owned the shop near the W.T. campus — even installing a futuristic Xervac Scalp Treatment Machine, a suction-powered helmet promising hope to balding gentlemen of the Depression era.

In 1946, Recil Sigman took over, and by 1948 the shop moved into its new home at 2319 4th Avenue — where it still operates today.

For generations, Buffalo Barber Shop has been more than a place for a haircut — it’s been a gathering spot, a storyteller’s corner, and a pillar of Canyon tradition.

Today, with longtime barbers Donna Farrow — who’s been cutting there more than 40 years — and Austen Covin the legacy continues.

From the Jazz Age to the digital age, Buffalo Barber Shop remains one of Canyon’s longest-running businesses — a living piece of Texas Panhandle history.

02/08/2026

🧑‍🚀 Rick Husband - Texas Panhandle’s Finest

On February 1, 2003, Commander Rick Husband was just 16 minutes from landing when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas. All seven crew members were lost.

Rick graduated with honors from Amarillo High School in 1975 with one dream: to become an astronaut. He earned his pilot’s license at 17 at Tradewind Airport, studied mechanical engineering at Texas Tech, and became an elite Air Force test pilot, logging over 3,800 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft.

After four rejections, NASA finally accepted him in 1994. In 1999, he piloted STS-96, the first mission to dock with the International Space Station. By January 2003, he was commanding Columbia on a 16-day scientific mission. His wife Evelyn and their two children waited in Florida for his homecoming that would never happen.

Rick Husband embodied Texas Panhandle values: hard work, humility, courage, and dedication to family. The Amarillo airport now bears his name—a reminder that one of America’s heroes came from right here in Randall/Potter County.

Commander. Husband. Father. Pioneer. Hero.

02/06/2026

Buddy Knox — From Wheat Fields to Rock & Roll

On a wheat farm near Happy, Texas, a teenage Buddy Knox began writing a song that would help shape early rock & roll. By the mid-1950s, while studying at West Texas State College in Canyon, Knox and his band—the Rhythm Orchids—were playing fraternity shows across the Panhandle.

In 1957, they scraped together about $60 and drove to Norman Petty’s garage studio in Clovis, New Mexico, recording late into the night with a cardboard box for drums. The result was “Party Doll.”

Released nationally, the song hit No. 1 in March 1957, making Knox one of the earliest rock artists to top the charts with a song he helped write and perform. He soon toured on Alan Freed’s rock & roll package shows, sharing stages with Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Knox later told fellow Texan Buddy Holly about the Clovis studio—soon after, Holly recorded “That’ll Be the Day” in the same room.

Today, Buddy Knox rests in Dreamland Cemetery in Canyon, his guitar-shaped headstone nearby, and his guitar preserved at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum—proof that rock & roll once rose from the wheat fields of West Texas.

02/02/2026

THE VICTORIA HOTEL FIRE OF 1910 - Canyon, TX

On an early Tuesday morning in 1910, the Victoria Hotel—Canyon’s social center for 20 years—caught fire. The town’s newly formed volunteer fire department, led by Chief A.M. Smith, faced their first real test.

The challenge was immense: they had to rush their horse-drawn engine from the station blocks away, only to discover no water source at the fire. In a desperate move, they stretched nearly 500 feet of hose back across the square to the Rogerson Hotel’s water tank—almost to where they’d started.

The Victoria was lost, but these 21 men who’d never fought a fire saved everything else. The First National Bank caught fire three times. Three times they put it out. Building after building ignited around the square, and each time, they held the line.

When many had questioned the $3,500 spent on that horse-drawn engine in 1909, Chief Smith and his fire boys proved it was worth every penny. That morning in 1910 began a legacy of service that continues 116 years later.

01/28/2026

Could Mercury Morris and Duane Thomas be the greatest college running back duo of all time?

THE COLLEGE YEARS (1966-1969):
In 1967, West Texas State had two All-Americans in the same backfield: Mercury Morris and Duane Thomas. Morris finished 2nd in the nation in rushing to O.J. Simpson with 1,274 yards. Thomas led the entire NCAA in yards per carry at 7.2. Together, they won the 1967 Junior Rose Bowl.

In 1968, Morris set three NCAA records: 340 yards in a single game (vs. Montana State), 1,571 yards in a season, and 3,388 career yards. O.J. Simpson broke the single-season record just one week later. That’s the company they kept.

Combined, Morris and Thomas rushed for over 2,200 yards in the 1968 season alone.

THE NFL LEGACY:
Duane Thomas:
• 1970: NFL Rookie of the Year (803 yards, 5 TDs)
• Tom Landry called him “the next Jim Brown”
• 1st round pick, 23rd overall (1970 NFL Draft)
• January 16, 1972 - Super Bowl VI: Cowboys defeat Dolphins 24-3
• Thomas: 95 rushing yards, 1 touchdown

Mercury Morris:
• 3rd round pick (1969 AFL-NFL Draft)
• 3x Pro Bowler (1971, 1972, 1973)
• Led NFL in rushing touchdowns in 1972 (12 TDs)
• January 16, 1972 - Super Bowl VI: Lost to his former teammate Thomas and the Cowboys
• January 14, 1973 - Super Bowl VII: The Perfect Season (17-0), Dolphins defeat Redskins 14-7
• January 13, 1974 - Super Bowl VIII: Back-to-back championships, Dolphins defeat Vikings 24-7

THE UNPRECEDENTED ACHIEVEMENT:
Two teammates from the same college backfield faced each other in Super Bowl VI. Thomas won. Then Morris came back and won the next two Super Bowls, including the only perfect season in NFL history.

Back-to-back-to-back Super Bowl championships. 1972, 1973, 1974. All featuring former West Texas State Buffaloes.

Name another college running back duo that:
✓ Both became All-Americans
✓ Won a bowl championship together
✓ Both became NFL stars
✓ Faced each other in a Super Bowl
✓ Won three consecutive Super Bowls between them

It all started right here in Canyon, Texas.

01/19/2026

The Lost Gold of Palo Duro Canyon: A Texas Panhandle Mystery

Winter 1876. Two brothers from California—William and Daniel Casner—arrived in the wild Texas Panhandle with 1,600 sheep and a fortune in gold. They’d struck it rich in the gold fields, minted their earnings into twenty-dollar gold pieces, and were searching for open grazing land in Palo Duro Canyon.

They never got to enjoy it.

Sostenes L’Archevêque, a notorious outlaw with 23 kills to his name, tracked them down on January 20th, 1877 and murdered both brothers, along with their Navajo shepherd. But in his desperate search for the gold, Sostenes claimed he found nothing. That same night, his own brother-in-law Nicolas Martinez killed him—possibly to avenge the murders, possibly to claim some treasure for himself.

When their brother John and nephew Lew Casner heard the news in Silver City, New Mexico, they rode into the Panhandle ready to avenge their brothers and claim what was rightfully theirs. They killed Martinez. They hunted down everyone connected to the murders. Bodies stacked up from Tascosa to Fort Elliott. Francis Macnab admitted that he had found two gold coins hidden in an oil can in the Casners’ wagon—proof the brothers had it. But the rest?

Never found…

150 years later, somewhere in Palo Duro Canyon, a fortune in gold coins—might still be out there.