9.17.2017   Spur of the moment

It’s true, Lone Star Literary Life was supposed to talk with award-winning legal historian Bill Neal of Abilene this week. We’ve been looking for the excuse to run an interview with the former lawyer, judge, and newspaperman, and had our chance with his upcoming appearance at the West Texas Book Festival later this month, and the publication of his new book.

But momentous events sometimes interfere with the best-laid plans. This week, Lone Star Lit completed the anticipated relocation of our headquarters from Lubbock to Spur, Texas, the Tiny House Capital of America. A few complications delayed our regular schedule, however.

Look forward to hearing from Bill Neal in next week’s issue, and in the meantime, we’ll tell you a bit more about Spur (and our first Paragraph Ranch Writing Weekend in Spur, slated for Dec. 1–3, with Tex Thompson!).

That’s the question friends in Lubbock and residents of Spur alike ask us.

Folks on the SpurFreedom.org website call it “The old west town that welcomes new pioneers.” Like many West Texas cities not situated along on major railroads or highways, not home to big energy or big agriculture or big universities, and not served by large residential real estate or retail, Spur lost population during Depression and droughts. At the time of the last Census, the population figure stood at a bit over 1,000. Preservation Texas in 2016 declared several of its sites to be among Texas’s Most Endangered Places.

<< Lone Star Literary Life moves to Spur, Texas

But let’s talk about what Spur is, rather than what it’s not. It’s rugged ranch country cut by creeks and streams, with magnificent canyon vistas from every approach. It’s a regional shipping point for cattle and crops. It’s the home of the Spur Bulldogs (who play 6-man football in the stadium at historic Swenson Park). And it’s a scenic grid of streets where more than 600 home and business lots once sold within weeks after the railroad arrived in 1909. In June 2014, the city, observing how many of those lots were no longer in use, rolled out the welcome mat to newcomers looking to live small or make a fresh start. Spur declared itself the Tiny House Capital of America.

^^ Spur, Texas, 1 hr. E of Lubbock

Bob and Kelli Phillips of “Texas Country Reporter” paid a visit recently, to see what the Tiny House movement was all about. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal came calling. Spur had to grapple with unregulated growth of unconventional residences, and put a few local ordinances in place. KCBD-TV (Lubbock) visited during its 2017 Live Community Coverage Week in August, and reported on the tiny houses as well as the coming reopening of the historic Palace Theater on Burlingon Avenue.

^^ Burlington Avenue, Spur’s main drag

A home for the arts

By then we’d already had our eyes on Spur as a candidate for a real-life Paragraph Ranch and the headquarters of Lone Star Literary Life. Now, anyone who’s ever visited the library at our Lubbock studio knows good and well we’re not cut out to be tiny-house material — but we applaud the innovative approach to small-town economic development and diversity, and we determined that we could do with a bit of downsizing even as life began to imitate art.

We’ve been working — with the help of neighbors and contractors and friends and family — to contribute to the renaissance going on in Spur and Dickens County. We are glad to be pioneers in this New West city with an excellent public library and history museum, and the site of new writing to come.

Here’s our new contact info (publishers and authors sending us review copies, please take note):

Lone Star Literary Life

P. O. Box 515

Spur, TX 79370-0515

Phone (806) 271-1997

Email remains the same: info@LoneStarLiterary.com

And what about that giant spur?

The city of Spur celebrated its centennial in 2009 with the dedication of a giant spur sculpture created by local welder John Grusendorf. It’s been eclipsed by even larger ones in Abilene, Kansas, and Lampasas, Texas. They can keep on duking it out for the Guinness record. Here in Spur, we’ve got the real thing, as you can see any day when the cowboys gather down at the drugstore or stop in for coffee at Allsup’s.

We invite you to sign up for our first Paragraph Ranch Writers’ Weekend, Dec. 1–3 2017, with leader Tex Thompson, at the historic Back Door Inn and Spur Community Center. Limited space is available for this hands-on workshop and critique session, aimed at helping writers at all levels and in all genres find their greatest potential — and spur them on toward their writing goals.

<< Arianne “Tex” Thompson, author of One Night in Sixes and other novels: read her January 2017 Lone Star Listens interview here

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