Sitting in the Abilene airport and gazing at the flat hills surrounding south Abilene over which the buffalo ran, I wondered at the courage and foolhardiness of the early pioneers who settled Abilene.
This is a very flat country with sparce rainfall and scrubby mesquites--not at all like the Tennessee lands from which many of the settlers came. I think those early residents must have been sold "a bill of goods" as indeed the Eagle Colony of Germans which settled near Lytle Lake was. The settlers came through the Callahan Divide and over the large hills east of Abilene pushing their wagons and leaving exhausted livestock in the ditches by the side of the road. They first settled in Buffalo Gap, but then moved to a dusty space they called Abilene, hoping it would pattern itself after the cattle-rich Abilene, Kansas. Typical of their nature, they opened a Presbyterian Church even before the town was incorporated, which this month celebrated its 125th anniversary.
Fortunately Abilene was selected as a railroad town. It was first used to ship buffalo skin and bones back to the East. Now their descendents live in a town where the barrenness is forgotten in gorgeous sunsets and newly planted crepe myrtles.
Those of us who have grown up in the West appreciate their sacrifice for our benefit.
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