Timothy Dwight Hobart - White Deer Lands

White Deer Lands

In January 1903, Hobart resigned from the New York and Texas Land Company to become general manager of the newly-established White Deer Lands Trust Company, which purchased some 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2) of land from him in Carson, Roberts, Hutchinson, and Gray counties in the northern Panhandle. From his Gray County headquarters, Hobart surveyed, fenced, improved, and sold land for White Deer until 1924.

Hobart was in charge of recruiting farmers to the Panhandle lands, with Henry Thut and Perry LeFors being among the first to purchase such agricultural tracts. Farming communities, including LeFors and Groom, sprang up. The company office was located in the new railroad town of Pampa. The Diamond F Ranch, then consisting of 630,000 acres (2,500 km2), sold its cattle and leased its land to various cattle outfits. White Deer Lands had succeeded in selling most of the remaining 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of land.

The history of the company, which existed until 1957, is maintained at the White Deer Land Museum in a structure constructed in 1916 and located at 112-116 South Cuyler Street in Pampa.