Kelso is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

in west-central

Deaf Smith County, Texas Deaf Smith County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,583. The county seat is Hereford, which is known as the "Beef Capital of the World". The county was created in 1876 and later organ ...

, United States.

History

Kelso was created as the basis of a massive

confidence scam A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust (emotion), trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, Moral responsibility, irresponsib ...

by George G. Wright, an unscrupulous land promoter, to sell an 80,000-acre tract of

XIT Ranch The XIT Ranch was a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle which operated from 1885 to 1912. Comprising over 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km²) of land, it ran for 200 miles (300 km) along the border with New Mexico, varying in width from 20 to ...

land that existed 25 miles northwest of Hereford. Wright constructed a fake town, which included a hotel, a general store, and a schoolhouse, none of which were occupied by permanent settlers. Many prospective land buyers were brought to the town, and these were the only guests of the hotel. The schoolhouse was never used and buyers were shown "customers" loading merchandise they had purchased at the general store, but these were actors hired by Wright to perpetuate the fraud, and the merchandise was simply returned when the land buyers had left. Wright also constructed a large barn and filled it with corn shipped in from Iowa. Wright's fraud was so successful that the United States Postal Service briefly established a post office in Kelso that operated from 1907 to 1908. Wright and his associates, by misrepresenting the quality and value of the land, its distance from towns, and stage of development, successfully sold parcels at prices from $8 to $40 an acre. To protect the scam, residents from the immediate surrounding area were not allowed on the special trains Wright chartered from Kansas City, and the land purchasers were disallowed from mingling with local residents. Dryland farmers, who made up the preponderance of the buyers, realized too late that the town was fake and that deep-well irrigation was necessary to grow crops. By late 1907, the entire tract had been successfully sold by Wright. The town of Kelso soon disappeared after proposals by the farmers to bring in a rail line were unsuccessful.

References

Deaf Smith County, Texas Confidence tricks Ghost towns in Texas {{DeafSmithCountyTX-geo-stub