ABANDONED TEXAS: Rural Towns DYING A Slow DEATH - Far Off The Interstate

Alright everybody, I am in rural Texas. Here I'll show you where I'm at on the map. You can see me there in the middle, the blue dot. I'm kind of in west Texas, sort of close to Amarillo. Amarillo is right here, it's not on the map for some reason. This area is far from any interstate and the towns I'm about to show you are, well, they're way past their prime. Many of them are dying or close to dead. It's an interesting area. It is a semi-desert climate here. When I was driving in I saw a lot of just tall grass and scrub. Here's a shot of what we're looking at, or what it looks like around here. Anyway, the first town I'm going to visit is called Paducah. I'm going to drive into downtown now. I've always been interested in seeing this city or town. It's on several ghost town lists, even though that's really kind of inaccurate. There's about a thousand people here. Now, Paducah's heyday was in the 50s when there were over 3,000 people here, but the city has been declining year after year for a long time and there's just not much here anymore. Now, the town is named after Paducah, Kentucky. One of the founding fathers of the town was from Paducah, Kentucky, and he managed to convince the people when it was being incorporated to name it Paducah. The downtown is mostly dead, but they do have this building here. This is the county courthouse. I believe it was built in the 20s. Art Deco. It's impressive. It's a beautiful building. Not a lot else here though. It is a Saturday about 9 30 a.m. Look at that old theater. John Wayne Red River. Do you think that was the last movie to play? Anyway, yeah, it's mid-November, Saturday, about 9 30 a.m. I'm going to try to hit about six or seven towns today and they're pretty far apart, so I'm going to have to... That's why I had to get started kind of early. It is very quiet now though, isn't it? Beautiful day here in Texas. Like I said, it's mid-November, but it's supposed to hit close to 60. It's already pretty nice. It's up in the mid-40s now. Yeah, much of the town though is in decay. I do love the red brick roads, but outside of the red brick roads, you're basically looking at dirt roads. All right, I've turned around. I'm going to take another swing through downtown. Make sure you see everything. It feels like a ghost town, doesn't it? Wow. I bet this was something in the 50s, this town. That was pretty awesome. Look at that. M.E. Moses Company, five dime and 25 cents and a dollar store. It is still beautiful, I think. It says up top, First State Bank, 1910. So I guess that's when it was built. Wow. It is so crazy out here, so far away from any big city seeing these places. I'm going to look around down here. There's something I want to show you. There are some impressive buildings here. Here's one of them. It's the City Hall. It's beautiful. They had what looks like a hotel over here, too. I'm going to show that to you. Yeah, they have a Hunter's Lodge Motel. I am pretty sure it is still in operation. Beautiful building. Hunter's Lodge Motel feels like home. Yeah, I'm impressed with that. Yeah, and I saw this house earlier. Big, beautiful house here. I don't know if you can see that. You can see the dirt road. Once you get off these brick roads, you're into dirt roads. It's really interesting. Yeah, look at all this. A gas station long gone right there. All right, as I make one more pass through downtown here, I'll give you the numbers real quick. Poverty level here is 26.7. That's pretty high. U.S. average is a little over 11. The average household income is $41,300. So that's well below the U.S. average of $72,000 plus. Average home value here is $96,500. So yeah, homes here are about a quarter of the price they are in the rest of the U.S. I wonder what this old building was. It says Hotel and Cafe. You can barely read it. Yeah, it's just boarded up, broken out glass. Okay, Coddy or Coddle Hotel. Yeah, that's the name of the county. This is Coddle County. I want you to look at that. It's slowly falling apart. Anyway, the one last number, the average age of the people living here is 37.3. So yeah, there's that. I think I've shown you enough here. I'm going to head to the next town. It is called Matador. So that is coming up next. All right, I am driving into Matador. Matador, Texas. I believe I cut a left here and I'll drive into downtown. Matador has a little over 500 people. Its heydays was in the 40s and there were 1,400 people here. So it's lost well over half its population. Ah, shoot, like 60, 70 percent. Looks like it's got a square for downtown. Not near as big as some of the others or definitely not as big as that last town, Paducah. They've got a county courthouse here. In the middle, this is Motley County. I love that name. Motley County, Texas. Anyway, some interesting numbers with this town that kind of stick out. The poverty level is 10.5. So that's really low. That's lower than the national average. Unusual for towns like this in the country. And, you know, I'm far off the interstate. We're nowhere near an interstate. Average age is 28.7. That's pretty low. It's a young population here. The average household income is $54,600. And the average home is worth $81,700 here. Give you a good look. Got a few people here though. It's 10.45 a.m. It's getting warmer. It's about 51 degrees now. Feels pretty nice. Beautiful day. No wind. Really nice day here in Texas. Well, I came across a point of interest here. Let's see what this is called. Very old gas station. It's got a marker in front of it. So I'm wondering if it's or what the history is here. Yeah, Bob's Oil Well. How about that? See, the sun is shining right where it's hard for me to show this to you well. I'll do my best here. Let's see, Bob's Oil Well. Greenville, Texas native, Luther Bedford Bob Robertson, veteran of World War I, came to Matador in the 20s. He was a gas station attendant in 1932 when he decided to open a service station here. To promote his business, he built a wooden oil derrick over the station. He patented his design and in 1939 replaced the wooden derrick with one of steel that reached 84 feet in height and included lights. All right. He says the gifted businessman promoter, he kept a cage of live rattlesnakes for the amusement of tourists, grew a zoo that included lions, monkeys, coyotes, buffalo, paid long distance truckers to place advertising signs at strategic points across the country. How about that? So this place was kind of famous in its day. Fascinating. He says he died in 1947 and two weeks later, wind toppled this derrick, but the city put it back up. Here it is. A little bit better angle here with the sun. You can see the lights on it. I bet this looks really cool at Fantastic. Yeah. This is the kind of stuff you come out to the country to see. I wonder if that was here all that time too. Let's see what's inside. Yeah. Nothing there. Looks like they're going to work on it. Do something there. See what's in this one. Yeah. Looks like it's a, they're going to do something eventually with it. That's pretty cool. Just exploring the town a little bit. Trail dust, motel, colored cable TV, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. It has seen better days. I bet in the fifties when people would take vacations in their cars and stay at motels like this, uh, that it was a busy place. Cool. Want to take another closer look at this area of downtown, show you this hotel matador, which is still open or still operating. That's what I meant to say. And this Lowe's grocery store, it's a, it's operating too. This is where the people in the town get their groceries. That's cool. No Walmart's around here. I guess I'm done here, guys. Uh, I'm going to head to the next town. It is called Floyd data. I'm pretty sure that's the right pronunciation. I looked it up Floyd data. Oh, that's coming up next. I'm still on my way to Floyd data, but I'm making a pit stop real quick. I want to show you this cotton field. It's a big crop around these parts. Uh, this field's been mostly picked. You can see that there. That's two huge blocks of cotton, but I love these cotton plants. Yeah. It starts out. I don't know what you call that, but that opens up into this. It's almost like popcorn. Isn't it? It's kind of cool how it just opens up and you got this soft white puffed of cotton soon to be in a pair of jeans or blanket or many of the air, uh, many uses of cotton. Anyway, I'm going to get back out on the road towards flow data. All right. I am pulling into Floyd data. That's a weird name. I know the town's founders, their parents were named Floyd and ADA. And, uh, that's where the name came from. They just merged the two words. This is the pumpkin capital of Texas. Maybe even the country. I'm not sure they they're pretty proud of it. This town produces 1 million pumpkins a year. So that's quite a few, uh, the town. Well, let's talk about the population. Uh, there are about 2,600 people here today. The peak population of this town was in the early eighties when there were 4,200 people here. The city has been losing people ever since. So I'm, I'm going to drive around this little square here. They've got, you know, like a lot of Texas towns, it is a square. It's a County courthouse there in the middle. I'll show you that in a second. Yeah, there it is right here. Floyd County. Anyway, some of the numbers poverty level is 16.1%. Average age is 36.5. The average household income is 46,300. And the average home value. Now this number really sticks out is 49,600. So that's just over a 10th of the average, uh, home value in the United States. So, uh, that's really low. Yeah. There's the courthouse again, Floyd County courthouse. You can see a big pumpkin there. There are references to them in different places. Anyway, I'm going to take a little drive around. See what all I can see here. They've got a really beautiful looking old theater here. It looks like the palace looks like it's in pretty good condition. I don't think it's operating though. Yeah. It doesn't look like it is. Uh, yeah, there's another pumpkin. The pumpkin culture is pretty big here. And there's another one. So anyway, I'm going to just look around a little bit more. See what's Look at this old hotel. Uh, I don't know if it is operating. I don't think so. It's a really cool old building though. Anyway, I'm, uh, going back into town this way. See a huge, uh, grain elevator there. Yeah, it is. It is really quiet here. I kind of expected to see more people out and about this town because it's a little bigger. Uh, there's just nothing happening here. Well, I'll look around a little bit more. Like I told you earlier, cotton is big here. Uh, these are huge rolls of cotton. A whole bunch of them here. I guess awaiting transport. Yeah, that is a lot of cotton, isn't it? You can see cotton laying on the ground there. When you're in these towns, the cotton is just everywhere. The town we are staying in, uh, there's cotton all over the place. Yeah, look at this area here though. Is that an old train car? Looks like it, doesn't it? It's just sitting here, or sitting there, resting. Returning to nature, I guess. And we've got a huge elevator here. Yeah, I'd mentioned the really low value of homes here. Driving around town, you can really see it. A lot of the homes here look just like this. The number that I told you, the average value of homes, it's under 50,000. Kind of looks correct. You can see that, uh, yeah, that's probably the right number. There is a tremendous amount of homes that look just like this. Driving through the town. There's a couple more. I'm not sure if anybody even lives in these. The town has lost a lot of population, so there is bound to be some empty homes here. I wanted to show you this mural here before I head out of town. It's really awesome. I believe this building used to be an old school soda fountain. It's something else now. So, um, anyway, uh, just give me a look at the town. I'm gonna, uh, head to the next town now. It is called Silverton. I jumped out of the, uh, Bronco to take a quick look at this. I've never seen one of these things up close. They're all over Texas here. Uh, this huge fan. See if I can do a slow pan up there. Wow. Texas produces a tremendous amount of wind energy. I believe the top in the country. Cool. I just never been close to one of these things. I wanted to see it and show it to you. Wow. That's pretty cool. I am driving into Silverton. Right away you see a big county courthouse building right there. It's a really nice building, it looks like. Frisco County. Anyway, I'm going to drive into downtown here. It's got your square like a lot of Texas towns. There's about 600 people here now. Its heyday was in 1960 when there was, uh, 1,100 people. It's lost close to half its population since then. Actually, it was 1960. I think I read that wrong. Yeah, 1960. There were 1,098 people here. It's just over 600 now. Anyway, I'm going to take a look around here while I tell you about the town. Poverty rate is 14.4. Is that a, uh, coffee shop? It's open. They don't have any customers unfortunately. Right now it doesn't look like. Town's festive though. They got some Christmas decorations up. Anyway, going on. The age, the average age here is 43.9. That's a little bit older. I'm going to turn around here in a second. The average household income is $45,300. Yeah, it's a better view from this direction. I always try to get the sun in the right place when I'm shooting. So it looks better. Uh, anyway, and the average home value here is $53,500. So like the last town, uh, homes are, are very inexpensive. We'll take a look at a couple of streets here. Uh, the county courthouse is a beautiful building though. Briscoe County, 1922. Beautiful building. All right, well, I'm going to take a look around, see what else I can find here. Like many of these other towns, not a lot of pavement. It is a dirt roads. You can see the town's really small. I'm just one street off the main street and you're already in the open fields. I'm thinking that's a church. Kind of looks like one. Yeah, there's a little bit of the evidence of the almost desert climate. Got some cactus here. What do you make of that? Is that a very small home? That is really interesting. All right, well, uh, I'm going to head to the next town. All right, I am driving into the town of Kitty Quay. It's got an unusual spelling. I've got it on the screen there below you, but I checked with the local. Well, thank you, Australian Siri. Australian Siri directing me to the right place. Anyway, yeah, I checked with the locals and that's how it's pronounced. There's just over 300 people in this town. Peak population was in the 1930s. There was about a thousand people here. Just kind of taking it all in. I guess we'll go right into a neighborhood. The average household income here is $59,600. So that's pretty high, higher than some of these other towns. And the average home value is $83,800. That's a little higher too. Homes are a little, a little more expensive here. That's caught my eye here. Yeah, I guess these are all empty. Well, that one does, is not, I don't think. When you go to a town like this that's lost a lot of population, you really see it in the more modern homes here though. Got some goats. Got a little mini ranch here. I'm going to head back into downtown, take a look there. Yeah, much of it's empty, but it's a quaint little town actually. I kind of like it. Got some people down here. Let me go this way. Yeah, there's a few people here and there. It's not completely dead like some of these others I've been. Yeah, still got a few shops here downtown that are operating. You like to see that. Yeah, it's pretty nice here. There's a bed and breakfast, a coffee mill and mercantile. Got a nice mural here, a boutique of some sort, cafe. Pretty cool, really. Okay, well, I'm going to head to the next town. It is called Turkey. Yeah, Turkey, Texas. There's a movie theater out here. Old drive-in. Would you look at that? It says closed for winter. Let me get out real quick. Got to get a closer look at this. Closed for winter. Do you think this actually operates? Man, I used to love going to drive-ins as a kid. That's how I would see movies. I miss them. They're really hard to find now. I don't think this is operating. It's in pretty bad condition. You can see where you would get your food, your cokes and your snacks. I don't see any of the posts with the speakers, so I don't think it's operating. It's too bad. Wow, how cool is that? Huh, and look across the road there is a huge cotton field. You see all the cotton is popping out. Amazing. Well, all right, I'm gonna get back on the road to Turkey. All right, I am pulling into Turkey, Texas. It's named Turkey because the first post office was on a creek where there were a lot of wild turkeys roosting. They originally wanted to call it Turkey Roost, but apparently some other town in Texas has that, so they had to settle for Turkey. This is the birthplace and home or former home of Bob Wills. I don't think he's alive now, but he was the king of country swing. I have to admit, I don't know who he is, but I guess he was a big deal at one point. Can you see a big mural there? It's kind of a nice downtown, but there's just no one here. Well, I'm just kind of driving through the town. We got a field here called the Roost. The poverty level here is 8.3. That's really low. That's below the national average. Average age is 37.5. A big old tractor there. Average household income is $70,900. That's pretty high, and the average home value is right at $60,000. Look, they have an old theater right there in front, right there in view of the camera. So, it's got a pretty good income here. Low poverty. Seems like it's a pretty healthy town, but there is no one here in downtown. I wonder why. It seems like there would be. Turkey tracks. Given the numbers for this town, which are pretty good, yeah, I'm surprised. Got a big turkey here. Maybe because it's almost Thanksgiving. It's a bad time for turkeys. Now, you'll be seeing this video after Thanksgiving, but yeah, it's just a few days, or a couple days away, or a few days away. Oh yeah, I remember reading about this. Yeah, that's a monument to Bob Wills right there. King of Country Swing. Yeah, they've got this really cool old gas station here that they have restored. Yeah, how cool is this? Yeah, I looked in the window a second ago. I thought, there's somebody in there. No, it's a, yeah, it's a dummy. How cool. I was like, whoa, what's that guy doing in there? Here, let's get another shot of him. Yeah, nice, huh? He's got his coffee. Turkey, Texas. Now, they got a bus over here too. I guess it was Bob Wills' traveling bus. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Got it in pretty good condition. Nice, I like that. 1928 Phillips 66 service station. The city settled in the 1890s. Rapid economic growth in the mid-20s. Yeah, and then, of course, it's fading pretty hard now. Anyway, yeah, let's look at this real quick. This old truck, that is fantastic. There's another one right there just begging to be restored. Yeah, this is the coolest stuff. A little bit of history preserved here. That's awesome. I got out of the Bronco so you can hear this silence. It is so quiet. This is the kind of place that at night you'll be able to see millions of stars. Anyway, that's going to be the end of this video. We're going to head into New Mexico next. There's some small towns I want to show you there that look really interesting, and the wife and I are going to go to Carlsbad Caverns, so be looking for those. They'll be up next.