In Dickens County, we’re fortunate to have quite a few experts on local history—some, from their depth of reading, others, from visiting sites of the past, and still others, from living it. Three of these experts have teamed up to offer an occasional feature in The Texas Spur. This trio welcomes answers and other feedback to be shared in the pages of the newspaper.
The city of Spur once had a fairground, which was located just south of town across the Post Highway (FM 261) from the Freeman Addition. The fairground had a covered wooden grandstand and was used for baseball games, early football games, carnivals, and traveling minstrel shows.
We were told that once, a fairgoer saw a group of Comanche Indians put on a demonstration there of shooting buffalo with arrows, using locally donated calves.
The dates of the fairground’s existence are lost to history, but the grandstand was removed and used to build the pavilion at the Old Settlers Reunion Grounds in Roaring Springs (where the Motley-Dickens Old Settlers Reunion and Rodeo is held to this day). — H.E.W.
