Bovina, TX

Bovina is a Parmer County city on U.S. 60 between the forks of Running Water Draw, a Panhandle town that began as the Hay Hook Line Camp of the XIT Ranch. When the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway reached the ranch in 1898, cowboys used a switch here to unload cottonseed feed. Cattle gathered around the spilled feed, and railroad crews called the spot Bull Town until the post office opened as Bovina in 1899. The 2020 census counted 1,699 residents.

The rail stop turned into a livestock and farm-service town. By 1905 Bovina had churches, a school, a general store, and a boardinghouse; later residents built a volunteer fire department, water system, city park, clinic, and weekly newspaper. Today Bovina Independent School District and local farm businesses serve a community still tied to irrigated agriculture and cattle. A longhorn marker on U.S. 60 keeps the Bull Town story visible at the same road where the old ranch and railway once met. Bovina’s local story is the continuity: a place that grew from a ranch camp and cattle switch into a working Panhandle city.