Welcome Post

Welcome to Flight from Callahan County, a blog from an old, retired guy. Here I’ll occasionally post my thoughts on whatever comes to mind.

I grew up in Callahan County, Texas, a rural county situated along Interstate 20 just east of Abilene. The Census Bureau reports a population there of 13,660; median age of 43.3, older than the Texas median of 34.3; median household income of $40,945, lower than the Texas median household income of $59,206; a poverty rate of 15.6%, higher than the Texas rate of 14.7%.

Callahan County is part of what is known as the Big Country and where I have always thought West Texas began with traditional farm land giving way to gentle hills and valleys of scrub brush and mesquite good for ranching only.

I love Callahan County. I always roll down the car window to smell the fresh air when I drive into the county. I love seeing the magnificent wildflowers along FM 1864 near Scranton in the springtime. I love traveling farther west on that highway where a sudden drop in elevation introduces less-fertile land covered with mesquite trees, then through the Atwell area, where the post oaks attracted some of the first settlers to the area. Then back to the west where the juniper-covered Callahan Divide hills near Admiral separate the Colorado and Brazos River basins and provide a break from the mesquites. I love the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the view of storm clouds approaching from the northwest and the nighttime show of the Milky Way and millions of other stars unobstructed by light pollution from the city.

I love the people of Callahan County. They are independent, loyal, strong-willed and take care of their own. They love, laugh and enjoy life there. They tell great stories about themselves, their families, their neighbors and the history of the area. Most of the stories contain at least a kernel of truth. But they are reluctant to change and tend to hang on to prejudicial baggage that should have been buried long ago.

When I graduated from high school, I moved to the city for college and then a career in urban areas. Unlike some of my friends and family members who returned to the Callahan County area after retirement, I stayed in the city. Callahan County is probably representative of a lot of rural counties in this country that have been in decline because of numerous factors, including neglect of the state and national governments and lack of vision of local leaders. There’s nothing there for me now.

Most of the settlement of Callahan County in the late 19^th century was by white immigrants from the southern states, fleeing destruction and displacement caused by the Civil War. They were seeking a new life, but they brought with them the prejudices of the South. Callahan County was one of those counties that once had an unwritten rule that no African Americans should be allowed in the county after dark. A few years ago I observed pictures of lynching of African Americans in Baird, the county seat, probably taken around the beginning of the 20^th century. I have seen no other documentation of these events, but they obviously happened.

Before I was born, our neighbor across the road, Porter Ledbetter, raised cotton. When it came time to harvest the crop, he hired African Americans who lived in adjacent Eastland County. Each morning Mr. Ledbetter would drive his truck east to Scranton, just over the county line, to meet his workers. He would take them to the field, then in the afternoon Mr. Ledbetter would return the African American field hands to Scranton before sunset to remain in compliance with that atrocious rule.

I’m sure this prevailing attitude about African Americans a century ago is the reason today there are only a tiny number of African Americans living in Callahan County. In fact, there is virtually no significant ethnic diversity in the county. According to U.S. Census estimates, 86.8% of residents were White Alone; 9.14%, Hispanic or Latino; Two or more races, 2.25%; Black or African American Alone, 1.47%; Asian Alone, 0.242%; American Indian and Alaska Native Alone, 0.0586%. Looking at diversity another way, Callahan County’s foreign-born population in 2017 was down to 2.09% from 2.14% in 2916. Those percentages are below the foreign-born population in neighboring counties and far below the 17% ratio for the State of Texas. Ethnic diversity contributes to productivity, innovation and creativity of the population of a region, attributes in short supply in Callahan County.

Health care and health care access in Callahan County fall below what should be the standard for all Americans. A Census Bureau comparison with the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA, for example: Callahan County, 77.9% have health care coverage, 36.6% on employee plans; Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, 83.5% have health care coverage, 51.6% on employee plans. Primary care physicians seeing patients from Callahan County see 13,557 patients per year on average, up from 6,756 on average the previous year. That increase seems a bit dubious, but using the lower number, it’s significantly higher than the 1,670 patients per year on average seen by physicians in the  Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA.

Callahan County is religious, but there’s little diversity in that category. In 2010 there were a total of 36 religious congregations in the county, 28 Evangelical Protestant (14 Southern Baptist), 6 Mainline Protestant and 1 Catholic. There were no Jewish groups, nor Muslims in Callahan County.

Callahan County is under-educated. The high school graduation or higher rate is 87.1%, a little higher than the Texas rate and about the same as the rate in the United States. However, only 16% of residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher, three-fifths the rate in Texas and half the rate in the United States. Callahan County has four public school districts, each with a high school.

Baird High School – SchoolDigger Rank: 906^th of 1,839 Texas High Schools; Student/Teacher Ratio: 5.8; Number of Students: 85; White: 80%, Hispanic: 20%; Free/Discounted Lunch Recipients: 61.2%.

Eula High School – SchoolDigger Rank: 277^th of 1,839 Texas High Schools; Student/Teacher Ratio: 7.1; Number of Students: 116; White: 80.2%, Hispanic: 13.8%, Two or More Races: 4.3%, Asian: 0.9%, American Indian: 44.8%; Free/Discounted Lunch Recipients: 44.8%.

Clyde High School – SchoolDigger Rank: 1058^th of 1,893 Texas High Schools; Student/Teacher Ratio: 11.0; Number of Students: 415; White: 81.7%, Hispanic: 14.7%, African American: 1.7%, Two or More Races: 1.7%, Asian: 0.2%; Free/Discounted Lunch Recipients: 40.5%.

Cross Plains High School – SchoolDigger Rank: 721^st of 1,893 Texas High Schools; Student/Teacher Ratio: 8.8; Number of Students: 140; White: 90.7%, Hispanic: 8.6%, Asian: 0.7%; Free/Discounted Lunch Recipients: 58.6% .

Only three public libraries are located in Callahan County, each operated by one librarian. The Callahan County Library in Baird is in the basement of the country courthouse. Resources are extremely limited and operating hours appear to be irregular. The Cross Plains Library has a slightly larger revenue stream than the county library with just under $17,000 provided by non-government sources. The Cross Plains Library also maintains a website. The largest library in the county is the Clyde Public Library, operated by the city. The Clyde library is 4,641 square feet in size with local government providing operating revenue of $52,411. Revenue from other sources, including the state government, totals about $4,500.

Callahan County has limited or no broadband internet service. Most of what is there is slower DSL, fixed wireless and satellite. At a time when school systems are requiring students to have laptops or iPads for both textbooks and homework, the pace of wiring this rural area is shameful. Windstream is the most common provider in most of the towns and communities in Callahan County, offering a maximum speed of 100 MBS for $33 per month. Clyde is the only town in the county with fiber, sold by the Abilene firm of Taylor Telecom, and that’s currently available to only 24% of the population. According to a speed and cost comparison by BroadbandNow, the average download speed in Clyde is 9.8 Mbps for an average cost per Mbps of $1.07. That’s compared to New York at 110.3 Mbps for $0.32 and Houston at 52.5 Mbps for $0.31 Mbps. Approximately 900 people in Callahan County have no access to any wired internet. An estimated 5,000 people there have no access to at least 25 Mbps wired internet. The little town of Putnam on Interstate 20 in the eastern part of the county is the 1,190^th most connected city in Texas.

Finally, Callahan County is Trump country. In the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Texas 52.6% to 43.4%. But in Callahan County, Trump got 87.4% of the vote. Enough said!

Data from The Census Reporter, 2016 Presidential Election Results from Politico, Callahan County SNAP (Food Stamp) Household Statistics, Association of Religious Data Archives, Google Maps, Religion in Callahan County, Texas, The County Information Program – Texas Association of Counties, Texas Public School Review, Broadband Now.