Lazbuddie, Texas
Jennings Farm 1930
Lazbuddie was named for D. Luther (Laz) Green and Andrew (Buddie) Sherley, who in 1924 purchased a tract from the Star Ranch and opened a store, the Lazbuddie Commissary, at which a post office was established on May 4, 1926. Until the Rural Electrification Administration came in, the town's only telephone was also located there. Soon a country town sprang up around the establishment, and in 1927 the Star Ranch school had a red brick building. By 1930 a second store and three churches had been established. Tent shows and medicine wagons often came by during the Great Depression era. In 1947 the town listed a population of seventy-five.
Willie Frank Wagner & WC Williams, circa 1936 Lazbuddie Store
Star Ranch
The Beginning of Lazbuddie
Star Ranch, which had been purchased from the syndicate in 1902 by Thomas Kelly, a member of the Livestock Commission of Kansas City, was one of the largest and best-known ranches in the country. Land comprising 55,136 acres was purchased from the Capitol Reservation Land Company. Ten thousand acres were purchased by A.L. Laird, first foreman of the ranch, making a total of 63,136 acres, or slightly over 160 sections of land. It is told that in measuring this land A.L. Laird, first “boss” of the ranch, attached a speedometer to his buggy wheel and with a compass on his lap.
Cattle were brought in by Kelly, and Star Ranch became an active cattle ranch with 30 windmills, various outbuildings, bunkhouses for cowboys, and corrals for horses.
One building, a dugout, and about eight windmills were already there, having been put there by the syndicate: the dugout known as Red Tower Camp. Directions or locations around the ranch were given according to names of windmills. Mrs. F.L. Reed, of Friona, whose husband purchased a part of Star Ranch in 1908. A few of the windmills were: Red Tower, Keefer, Four-mile, Carter Corner, and Cottonwood.
Star Ranch functioned on this large scale only from 1902 until 1908 when the last of the Kelly cattle were shipped to Kansas for summer feeding on their way to market at Liverpool, England. The ranch was sold in 1908.
Almost at once this land was placed on the market for retail to homesteaders, as Kelly believed the land was fit for farming. Conditions since have proved the wisdom of his vision. By 1906 much of the land had been sold in tracts ranging from 80 to 640 acres. In some instances, three or four sections were sold to one purchaser. Kelly gave liberal terms and 25 years’ time, thus encouraging the small farmer to own a home. The land was listed for sale with the George G. Wright Land Company, which ran excursion trains from Kansas City to Friona and brought the people out to Star Ranch in a special fleet of automobiles owned by the company.
Some of the settlers buying farm- ranch tracts who are still represented here are: Joe Paul, who built in 1907; John Treider, Stephen Jesko, and Pete Kaiser, who built in 1908. R.L. Bledsoe is also an early comer to the Star Ranch, or Lazbuddie community.
“Old Red”, Lazbuddie School 1928. The first Lazbuddie School was started in 1907.
Kenneth Briscoe & Ruth Bruns, 1937 in front of Old Red