Bullish town settles down
On this day in 1899, Bull Town received the more refined name of Bovina when a post office was established. The community’s obvious connection to the cattle industry dates from its origin as the site of the Hay Hook Line Camp of the XIT Ranch in western Parmer County. In 1898 the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway steamed through the ranch, and cowboys unloaded feed at the XIT camp site. Cattle often gathered at the unfenced right-of-way, and the well-fed bovines lazed about the tracks, often causing delays for the railroad workers, who labeled the area Bull Town. The settlement’s more elegant alter ego, Bovina, boasted a cattle boom and, for a while, shipped a higher volume of animals than any other shipping point in the world. Those years of plenty continued beyond World War I, and throughout the twentieth century Bovina maintained an agricultural economy.