Perryton: Wheatheart of the Nation

Perryton calls itself the Wheatheart of the Nation, and the surrounding Ochiltree County backs the claim: by the dawn of the twentieth century, seventy-one ranches were grazing eighty-four thousand head of cattle here, and wheat eventually took over as the dominant crop. Perryton itself was founded in nineteen nineteen, named for George M. Perry, an early county judge, after a branch of the Santa Fe Railway reached the area.

Most of its first residents relocated from the older county seat of Ochiltree, fifteen miles to the south. An oil and gas boom began in earnest in the nineteen fifties, adding another layer to an economy already rooted in cattle, wheat, and grain sorghum. Today Perryton anchors the Texas Panhandle's far northeastern corner, a hardworking market town on the flat High Plains.