According
to the State Travel Guide, Dumas offers "scenic beauty in rugged canyons
and hills of Canadian River brakes."

West
Texas sunset 10 miles outside of Dumas

Photo courtesy James Feagin, 2001

Dumas History
in a Pecan Shell

Dumas’ namesake was Louis Dumas, an investor in the Texas
railroad lands. Dumas formed the Panhandle Townsite Company. He and other
investors saw unlimited opportunitiest here and after forming the Moore County
Township Company, the town that was to bear his name was platted.

The
first building housed the company office, a hotel, a general store, and the first
post office. When Moore County was organized, Dumas became the county seat and
a courthouse soon joined
the other buildings.

In the early 1890s the town was devastated when grasshoppers
ate nearly all of Moore County’s flora. The following year a severe winter drove
away many of the county’s pioneers, depleting the population nearly to extinction.
It was so bad that even Mr. Dumas himself “went back where he came from.”

The
town may be on the list of ghost towns
if it wasn’t for the tenacity of the Nield family who toughed it out. The town
was without a railroad connection and any building material or supplies had to
be brought overland from Amarillo.

With a population of less than fifty people, Dumas was a town living on the edge,
both literally and figuratively when it was announced a railroad was planning
on building through town. The population almost instantly quadrupled, which meant
that it barely reached 100 people

The railroad venture failed, but the
seed was sown for growth, nonetheless. The population doubled to 200 residents.

Finally, in the mid 1920s, oil and natural gas were discovered and residents were
beginning to feel things were finally changing for the better.

A
railroad (the North Plains and Santa Fe) finally arrived in 1931 and despite the
Great Depression, Dumas expanded. A new courthouse
was built and a fire department was organized. The town received its first paved
streets.

Dumas surprised the census department by reaching 2,500 people at the height of
the Great Depression. The installation of several carbon black plants swelled
the population to over 6,000 by 1950.

The drilling of new water wells and
the building of new petro-chemical facilities increased the population to new
heights. In 1960 it was 8,477 in 1960 and twenty years later it had reached over
12,000.

Dumas Chronicles

Dumas,
Texas, 1920by
Louise GeorgeMill Boyd - "The first I remember of Dumas was the
first night we got here. It was along in April or May, and we were out of Dumas
a few miles in a Model T car coming from Amarillo, and a rain had just gone through
and cleaned everything off, and it looked so pretty. There was not a tree, not
a fence - nothing. Out about three miles, along about the Stallwitz farm, I looked
and I could see the town. I could see that white courthouse with that cupola on
top with just a few houses here and there, dotted around. Dumas was so little
and it looked so lonesome. I thought, 'Oh dear! Where have I come to?'...

School Days by
Louise George J.T. Brown - “...When I was in school, the school was up
there where the Christian Church is now, up there on west Fifth or Sixth, somewhere
in there. There were two big old two-story buildings there for schoolhouses. The
class I graduated with in 1931 was the last class to finish in the old school
building..."

Dumas
Tourist Information

Dumas
Texas Forum

Subject:
Refinery Fire
I will never forget July 29, 1956. I was five years old. The fire siren in Sunray
blew and we could see the smoke from the refinery north of Dumas. My mother was
very scared because my Dad was a volunteer fireman in Sunray. When the phone rang
later my mother started crying... Dad had been badly burned when one of the tanks
exploded. Later, Dad said he could tell the tank was about to go and he and the
men with him began to run. There was a small berm nearby and Dad was able to get
to it. The flames went over Dad and burned the back of his head and severely burned
his arms... but he survived as did other men from the Sunray volunteer fire department.
Sadly, others from the small community fire department did not. Even though I
was very young at the time, I remember some of the men who died that day and how
the whole town of Sunray mourned. Yes, they are
heros.... from a time and place where heroism really meant something. - Randy
Foshee, Canon City, Colorado, September 01, 2006

Subject:
Fire at Diamond Shamrock July 29, 1956 - 50 Year Memorial There were 19
men killed by fire and explosion with 33 people injured. Four men who were fatally
injured were employees of the refinery, and thus not included as members of either
Dumas or Sunray Volunteer Fire Departments.

At least one man (D.C. Lilley)
had his name misspelled [on the monument]. His correctly spelled name is D.C.
Lilley. As his son I have quite a lot of info on this incident. There are monuments
in Sunray and Dumas and a 50 year memorial is planned
for 2006 in Dumas.

The NYC firefighters were all headed upward on 9-11-01.
They are among heroes anywhere. Out of over 5 million people, 343 firefighters
died that day. On July 29, 1956, nine men ( 8 firefighters and 1 refinery employee)
died among a town with a population of 1,240.

I consider them all heroes
as well as the men who found them and carried them to medical services. (We don't
know who most of them were.) They have my eternal thanks. The burial of most of
these men was at Lane Memorial Cemetery located one mile N. of Sunray
and approx 1/4 mile east on a (now paved) FM road.

Four of these men
were members of the First Baptist Church of Sunray. They were Broxson, Emmett,
D.C. Lilley, and Weir. Funerals were held on July 30 and 31, 1956 with mourners
lining both sides of the road from the church to Lane Memorial Cemetery.

I lived northwest across from the church and watched these funerals. My father's
being the last. All funerals were closed casket from this refinery fire and explosion.