Seagraves, TX

Seagraves is a Gaines County city at the intersection of U.S. 62/385 and State Highway 83, a South Plains town whose layout began with cattle and the Santa Fe Railroad. The J. C. Sartin family arrived in 1905 with nearly 800 cattle, and the place first went by Blythe after the ranch where its post office opened. When Santa Fe extended toward Lubbock, the town needed a different name; in 1918 it became Seagraves for railroad official C. L. Seagraves. Seagraves Independent School District and the high-school Eagles keep the city’s local institutions close to the town center.

Oil production began in 1936 and changed the scale again; egg production became another local industry, and the Seagraves-Loop Museum and Art Center keeps the cattle, rail, oil, and farm story in one place. The 1928 fire is another dividing line in the map: much of the town had to rebuild before the oil boom. Put Seagraves in northern Gaines County, then think of it as a market town where rail, cattle, oil, and school sports all belong to the same South Plains story.