Historical Marker
Finch-Lord-Nelson and the Founding of Panhandle City
Historical marker location:
501 Elsie, Panhandle, Texas
( 5th and Elsie Streets, SH 207, in Square House Museum Compound, Panhandle.)
Marker installed: 1968
Cattle firm that had brought first Herefords to region-- Lue Finch, W. H. Lord, O. H. Nelson-- in 1887 promoted Panhandle City, as railroad line approached. They sent in ten cowboys to stake claims around city, which prospered as county seat. The Finch-Lord-Nelson firm (which included John A. Finch after 1887) left descendants to continue pioneering. Of their 1887 employees, J. E. Southwood and W. D. Jolly also remained. This little red barn is a replica symbolic of frontier structures built by Finch-Lord-Nelson for the 1887 claimsmen.