Growing a Museum

Beginnings

The Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum is a non-profit entity organized under the City of Crosbyton and committed to improving the community through positive actions and talented leadership. 

Begun in 1958 with 9,000 sq. ft., the museum complex has grown to 52,000 sq. ft. (2019), incorporating two buildings with six main areas. It is funded by the Percy and Zina Lamar Foundation and through grants and private donations. 

For over 60 years, CCPMM's presence has contributed significantly to education, enrichment, historical preservation, and esthetic development of the region.  

Serving communities. Schools throughout the Great Plains area bring students to the museum for tours, events, and classes. 

Both museum locations, 101 West Main and 211 East Aspen, provide rental spaces for special events, meetings, family reunions, and many other occasions. Local 4-H events, Crosby County Extension programs, the American Growers Association, Crosby County Historical Commission, Crosbyton Lions Club, and other organizations hold regular meetings in CCPMM's spacious meeting rooms at 101 West Main. 

Go here for rental fees and information.

Georgia Mae & Stanley G. Ericson Farm and Ranch Museum. In 2013, CCPMM purchased additional museum space at 211 E. Aspen in Crosbyton. The west end of this 34,000 sq. ft. building is being developed as a farm and ranch museum while the east end serves as a venue for community events and provides farm equipment rental space. 

The Ericson Farm & Ranch Museum is named for Georgia Mae and Stanley Ericson. Georgia Mae Ericson was a granddaughter of Hank and Elizabeth Boyle Smith, first Anglo settlers in the region. 

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The First Anglo settlers in Crosby County. In the mid 1870s, Hank and Elizabeth Smith, with their young family, ventured into the Texas Panhandle from Ft. Griffin, Texas to establish their home in the wild and uninhabited Blanco Canyon. Hank Smith (Heinrich Schmidt), who came to New York from Germany as a teen, worked his way across the United States to Ohio, then down into Texas where he established a hotel at Ft. Griffin. There he married a Scotswoman, Elizabeth Boyle. Both adventuresome, they soon moved onto the Llano Estacado, settling about seven miles north of present-day Crosbyton where they built a stone home and raised their six children. Hank ranched, cultivated friendships among Native Americans, and served as a hotelier for visitors. Elizabeth was the area postmistress until 1912. 

A replica of Smith's limestone home serves as the northern-most part of the museum. The Hank Smith Room contains information and memorabilia about Hank and Elizabeth Smith and their descendants.

Crosby County, Texas, named for early Texan Stephen F. Crosby, was est. 1876 and formally organized in 1886. Its first county seat was founded in 1879 by a group of English Quakers under the leadership of Paris Cox from Ohio. The town initially was named Marietta but was renamed Estacado in 1881 since a Texas post office called Marietta already existed. In its heyday, the thriving little town of Estacado had a population of about 600, both Quaker and non-Quaker residents, along with merchants, blacksmiths, lawyers, a barber shop, and a newspaper. It served a large area as the seat of government and commerce on the Southern Texas Plains. When its Quaker settlers returned to Ohio in the mid 1890s, some of its families began moving to a more central part of the new county and there established a town they called Emma. In a hotly-contested county-seat election with Estacado in 1891, Emma won by six votes, and for a few years, retained that distinction. In 1910, construction began on the South Plains Railroad, promising an increase in commerce for towns fortunate enough to have the railroad come through them. The railroad's right-of-way missed Emma by five miles, continuing northeastward to another new town, Crosbyton. This resulted in a further population shift, and by 1910, when a county-seat election was held, the new town of Crosbyton won the county government location by a hefty 62 votes, moving the courthouse for the third and last time.

The two once-promising towns of Estacado and Emma gradually dwindled in population, then disappeared, leaving only the Emma and Estacado cemeteries to mark their existence. 

Summer Saturdays at the Museum.  In 2016, the museum initiated a summer fine arts program with courses presented by the Lubbock Caprock Quilters Guild and the Amarillo Weavers Association. In subsequent summers, the museum has hosted classic movies, fibre-arts classes, and painting classes. 

Quilting classes have proved a perennial favorite with beginning and intermediate classes projected for Summer 2021.

Fibre-arts enthusiasts can look forward to demonstrations in dying wool and spinning and weaving. 

Come in to see our year-round fibre-arts exhibits in the main auditorium. Contact us for more information.