A History Of Dickens County: Ranches and Rolling Plains Page: 81
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the group and M.A. McLaughlin, Jack Robertson and
Jim Cox represented the group from Rails At this
meeting, George Gabriel and E.B. Blujberg from
Spur were appointed to replace Hobert Lewis and
L,D. Ratliff who were unable to serve on the com-
mittee.
On September 10, 1956 a hearing was held before
the Texas Board of Water Engineers and on October
1, 1956 the White River Water Control & Improve-
ment District was created under the Statutory Law
of the State of Texas. Tom Bouchier, M.A. McLaugh-
lin, Lynn Btzbee, R.J. Jennings and Robert Work
were named as the board of directors. The bound-
aries of the district were named as the city limits
of the four towns.
In order that each city might have equal representa-
tion on the board of directors, the directors re-
quested the State Legislature to create the dis-
trict under a special act of the legislature. A bill
was introduced in the legislature on January 18,
1957, was passed and the bill became law on May
19, 1957 The act called for the creation of the White
River Municipal Water District with a board of dir-
ectors composed of three men from each of the cities
of Rails, Post, Spur and Crosbyton. The boundariesof
the district being the city limits of the four towns.
The directors to be appointed by the City Aldermen
of the four cities. The directors to serve a two year
term with six new directors to be appointed each
year. The directors appointed were as follows: Post;
Dr. A.C. Suman, Tom Bouchier, and R.J. Jennings;
Rails, Jim Cox, Jack Robertson, and M.A. McLaugh-
lin; Spur, E.B. Blumber, George Gabriel and Lynn
Buzbee, Crosbyton; Perry Bell, Dr. Dale Rhoades
and Robert Work. April, 1957, Jim Cox and Jack
Robertson were elected to City Commission in Rails
and J.S. Dennard and Al Cooper were appointed.
The early financing of the project was by as-
sessment from the four member cities with the as-
sessment being made on the number of water meters
in use. The Brazos River Authority provided 50%
($2500.00) of the funds for the topographical mapp-
ing.
The directors originally planned to finance the
project through a loan from the Housing & Home
Finance Administration of the Federal Government.
Plans called for bonds in the amount of $2,700,000.00
of first lien tax and revenue bonds to be issued
and sold to the Texas Water Development Board. A
bond election was called for May 16, 1957 and the
proposal was passed by 1017 votes for and 147 votes
against to issue $4,000,000.00 bonds.
In January , 1961, the Texas Water Development
Board had been in existence two years and no loans
had been made from the $200,000,000.00 legal Au-
thorization under a constitutional amendment author-
ized by the voters of Texas. Governor Price Dan-
iel requested the Legislature to revise the law lib-
eralizing terms of the loan. Legislation was passed
and the Directors of the White River Municipal Water
District immediately made application to the TWDB
for the $4 million dollar loan. The application was
approved and final papers were signed August 11, 1961
authorizing the sale of the bonds to the Texas Water
Development Board Interest rate average 4.058%.
The first equalization board met and established
values for the four member cities in 1958 The firstequalization board was Joe Parks, Crosbyton, W.P.
McKee, Rails, Walter Duckworth, Post and Page Gol-lihar, Spur. The rendered value was $27,794,000.00.
The first tax was assessed in 1961. The rendered
value was based on 80% to actual value and the rate
was 50 per 100.00 valuation. Tom Ed Benton was
hired as Tax Assessor and Collector on April 1, 1961.
A.A. Davis was hired as District Auditor in October,
1961. A.F. O'Brien vwas hired as full time manager
for the district on January 1, 1962.
5,735 acres of land was purchased from three
landowners at a total cost of $352,357.63. Approx-
imately 60 miles of pipe line easements to the four
cities were obtained at a total cost of $14,569 00.
The project was divided into six separate bid items
and bids were advertised and opened in the Crosby
County Pioneer Memorial Building on July 12, 1962.
Total cost of completed items were as follows:
Reservoir, $1,052,629.76.
Filteration Plant, 524,480.94
Booster Stations, 101,821.48
Pipelines, 1,843,068 89
Storage tanks, 83,041.09
Buildings, 78,870.25.
Approximately 20 miles of fence surround the
property owned by the district. Total cost of fencing
being $16,110.38.
Before completion of the project thedirectors pro-
cured additional funds in the amount of $500,000,000
from the Texas Water Development Board.
The greatest difficulty the directors encountered
in development of the project was the acquisition of
land. Numerous legal proceedings were encountered
and after spending almost two years the land was
purchased through a negotiated purchase.
The dam was completed in November, 1963 and a
small amount of water was contained in that year,
but not sufficient quanity for municipal use. Due
to an extended dry spell, no water was used from the
lake until May, 1965. In the spring of 1965 the lake
caught around 2,000 acre feet of water and Post and
Spur started using lake water in May. Crosbyton was
tied on in July of 1965. August, 1966, the lake caught
20,000 acre feed of water and Rails was tied on in
September, 1966.
On November 1, 1966, six of the original directors
are still serving on the board of directors. The
board of directors as of that date is as follows:
Post: Tom Bouchier, Dr A.C. Surman, James Minor,
Spur; Lynn Buzbee, Spencer Campbell, Jerry Ensey,
Rails; M.A. McLaughlin, Al Ray Cooper, J.S. Dennard
and Crosbyton; Dr. Dale Rhoades, Aries Graham and
Robert Work.
A special thanks should be awarded to the following
men who served on various committees during the
planning stages. J.R. McNeill, Spur, D.L. Knight,
Spi.r, Page Gollihar, Spur, Hobert Lewis, Spur,
L.D. Ratliff, Spur, L.A. Wicks, Sr. and W.P. Mc-
Kee from Rails, Norton Barrett, C.H, Lodal,
W.P. Walker, J.C. McNeill III, Dong McDermett(served as director), and Harry Jung from Cros-
byton and many others.81
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Arrington, Fred. A History Of Dickens County: Ranches and Rolling Plains, book, 1971; [Dickens, Texas]. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth61098/m1/99/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .