George West

GEORGE WEST

It’s not uncommon for a town to be named after its founder or a person of great influence, such is the case of the city in Live Oak County named George West. History tells us that George and Kitty West came from a small town in Tennessee in 1913 and became cattle ranchers of seventy – five thousand acres. Because of their wealth of land and ranching enterprises, they began to colonize, offering other landowners and ranchers the opportunity to grow, build and contribute to the city, while keeping the majority for themselves and expanding by building roads, schools, water, and electricity plants. The Wests’ offered free easement to the Gulf Railroad through their land. The future rested upon transporting cattle and other livestock on the train. All of this caused big changes for the whole community!

History, however, doesn’t tell us about the barn on Wests’ property. Being the most successful of all the cattle ranchers with as much as twenty – six thousand cattle, they had to have a barn, and barn, they had!  The barn was the largest of all in the county, the biggest and best! Through the years, it stood tall and majestic and George, being generous and wanting his neighbors to prosper, was always willing to allow other ranchers the use of his barn. He welcomed the ranchers to bring their cattle there for branding and calving or even to milk their cows and store the milk in the cans in the separate room with the electric separator. Often there were horses in the stables and pigs in the pen, but with the understanding that the pig farmer had to donate a pig to share with the community for the annual pig roast.  At one time, there was even a herd of goats and of course, like every barn, there were always the mama cats and their kittens, curled up, sleeping in a bed of fresh hay, after running and chasing the farmer’s dog. The barn had a lot of visitors and activities through the years and was an instrument in keeping a successful, neighborly relationship with the Wests and the community.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, things change! In 1960, after several profitable years, all the farmers suffered from a severe drought that cost the Wests and other ranchers losses of property and prices of livestock to drop. The hot, dry weather caused a fire that spread rapidly and with no water to fight it, the barn burned down, fortunately, no animals died in the fire, but it left nothing but the foundation it stood on. The entire community felt affected by the great loss!  

The ground where the once proud, majestic, barn stood was nothing but ashes and cinder. For a full week, with no rain in sight, George would go every day and rake and sift the smoldering rubble, hoping, praying and even shedding some tears, that the remains of the fire would finally die, allowing him to recover and rebuild.

Ten days had passed and there was no more smoke, it had finally rained the night before. George woke up feeling as refreshed as the rain. Finally, today is the day, he thought, as he walked out to the field where the barn once stood. He picked up his shovel, placed it in the wheel barrel and proceeded down the property. As he turned the corner, behind his house, he saw them.

They were all there!

All the neighbors and farmers had arrived early that morning with their trucks, tools, lumber and nails, “We’re going to build a new barn, George,” they said, “You’ve done so much to help all of us through the years, now we are going to help you.” George was overcome with happiness; he didn’t want all of them to see him cry but he couldn’t help it. “Thank you,” he said as he wiped his face with his red handkerchief, “I don’t know what else to say.” “You don’t have to say anything,” his pig farmer neighbor said, and turned to the crowd, “Let’s build a barn, boys and girls!” Suddenly, the farm that had been so quiet and sad since the fire, became a place of happy, organized chaos! It wasn’t long before Kitty came to join. She helped the women set up chairs and tables with red checkered table clothes. The men had already started the bar -b – que grill. The women had chicken, sausage and ribs. Two of them had brought ice chests full of ice, water, sweet tea and lemonade and the rest had chipped in with beans, and potato salad. Even though there was a lot of work involved, they didn’t need an excuse to have a real Texas bar -b- que. One of the men had country music playing on his truck radio. It was a genuine “barn raising” party with Willie Nelson entertainment.

By the end of the day, the ground and original foundation was cleared. Some of the farmers set up tents for the night to be ready to start first thing the next morning. Every day it seemed there were more people and the barn got bigger. At night they’d sit around the campfire, tell stories, poems and sing along with Willie while someone played guitar.

After two weeks, the barn was finished with a new, fresh coat of barn red paint and a Texas flag at the top under the peak. The metal roof shone proudly in the sun, covering the two stories. The top story was the hay loft with a hole in the floor to push the hay down to the livestock and stairs leading down. The main floor opened with large, sliding, barn doors on each end, creating a walk through. There were stables for horses, stalls for cows, a pig pen, of course, and a separate refrigerated room with the milk separator for the fresh milk in the cans to be stored until it was loaded on the train and carried to the creamery. It was bigger and better than the old barn, a sight to see, but……….

There was something strange about that barn!

When the wind blew, the barn came alive! The sounds and activities from the previous barn all seemed to be there, as if the wind had blown them in. It couldn’t be ghosts, there were no dead from the fire, but one could hear, sounds of the horse hoofs clipped, clopping on the floor, the pigs grunting with satisfaction from full bellies. The rustling hay seemed to carry the sound of the mama cat crying as she searched for her babies and on the windiest days, in the distant, it was if one could hear, the farmer, whistling, and calling, “Here bossy” he’d say, calling his cows, with full utters, to come for milking with the dog running behind them nipping at their hoofs.

It was a phenomenon, no explanation!

 People still go to see the barn, some are amazed, others frightened.

I’ve never seen the barn, but in 2005, when the George West Story fest started, featuring poetry, music and storytelling, the story of, the Barn, was told.

 And continues to be told today!