Dawn is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in eastern

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 orga ...

, United States. According to the

Handbook of Texas The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

, the community had a population of 52 in 2000.

History

Jim Moore, the T Anchor Ranch's boss, built a dugout approximately six miles southwest of the present-day townsite in 1887, giving rise to Dawn. After buying the dugout and the filing rights for the nearby areas two years later, J. H. Parrish eventually constructed a general store for the ranchers in the region. According to legend, he named it "Dawn of a New Country," or "Dawn of Civilization," and the first word of the sentence was picked as the name when he filed for a post office. According to another story, Parrish declared, "This is the dawn of a new day," when he first saw the land. In a barn near Dawn, James N. Askren operated a

broom A broom (also known as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool, consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a ...

manufacturing plant. Dawn was a thriving hamlet by the time Parrish sold his land holdings and relocated to

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

in 1893. When the Pecos Valley and Northeastern Railway arrived and built a depot there in 1898, it was guaranteed to survive. Over the following few years, Dawn flourished as a rancher's shipping hub, drawing in several immigrant farmers. The town had a hotel with a small band playing in it, a community church (later a Baptist church), and a

lumber mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimens ...

by 1917.

Wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

became the town's principal source of income by installing irrigation wells. In the 1940s, David Rodgers started selling his Deaf Smith corn meal,

wheat berries A wheat berry, or wheatberry, is a whole wheat kernel, composed of the bran, germ, and endosperm, without the husk. Botanically, it is a type of fruit called a caryopsis. Wheat berries are eaten as a grain, have a tan to reddish-brown color, and ...

, and stone-ground

whole-wheat flour Whole-wheat flour (in the US) or wholemeal flour (in the UK) is a powdery substance, a basic food ingredient, derived by grinding or mashing the whole grain of wheat, also known as the wheatberry. Whole-wheat flour is used in baking of breads ...

from his elevator at Dawn. Henry Turner had founded a stone-ground grain company. At the time, the town had 100 residents and four establishments. Later, Dawn lost several of its older enterprises, including its hotel, bank, railroad depot,

lumberyard A lumber yard is a location where lumber and wood-related products used in construction and/or home improvement projects are processed or stored. Some lumber yards offer retail sales to consumers, and some of these may also provide services su ...

, and

flour mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

, to paved roads and improved transportation. Nevertheless, in 1973, some clubs constructed a new community center there. In 1984, Dawn reported 94 residents, a store, a post office, and three elevators. Although there were still 94 people living there in 1990, by 2000 the number had decreased to 52. Although Dawn is unincorporated, it has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, with the ZIP code of 79025.Zip Code Lookup
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Geography

Dawn is located at the intersection of

U.S. Route 60 U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia. The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as General Booth Bouleva ...

and Farm to Market Road 809, northeast of

Hereford Hereford ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of the ceremonial county of Herefordshire, England. It is on the banks of the River Wye and lies east of the border with Wales, north-west of Gloucester and south-west of Worcester. With ...

, southwest of

Canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...

, and southwest of Amarillo in eastern Deaf Smith County.

Education

In 1891, James N. Askren opened the first school in Dawn. Another school campus was built in the community in the 1920s, including the county's first school cafeteria. It joined the Hereford Independent School District in 1963. The community is zoned for Aikman Elementary School in the district.

Notable person

Thomas Edd Mayfield Thomas Edward "Edd" Mayfield (April 12, 1926 – July 7, 1958) was a Bluegrass singer and guitarist, mostly known for being a member of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys band during the 1950s. Edd Mayfield and two of his brothers, Smokey Mayfi ...

, Bluegrass

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

, was born in Dawn.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Deaf Smith County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas