Business View Civil and Municipal | January 2021

53 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL JANUARY 2021 DEAF SMI TH COUNTY , TEXAS in 1876, later organized in 1890 and named for Erastus “Deaf” Smith, a partially deaf scout and soldier who served in the Texas Revolution and was the first to reach the Alamo after its fall. The largest city, Hereford, named after the famous breed of cattle, contains three-quarters of the county’s 20,000 total resident population. Deaf Smith County is a rural area – aside from the cattle ranches, the agricultural crops of wheat, cotton, sorghum and other grains, and vegetables grow with the help of irrigation from two aquifers, the Ogallala and Santa Rose. Since the turn of the century, Hereford has been the county’s main transportation hub, with tracks laid in the late 1800s for the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway, a subsidiary of the Santa Fe line. Today, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) still operates 75 trains a day through the heart of town. Highways began to run to and from Hereford as early as the 1920s, facilitating the better movement of farm products, and linking the city to all parts of the county and beyond. Today, the community is also served by the Hereford Municipal Airport, which offers a lighted, 6,100-ft. runway and can easily accommodate large corporate jets. Back in the spring of 2019, Hereford was experiencing a housing crunch. Wade Hawkins, Hereford’s Economic Development Coordinator, acknowledged there were a fair number of single-family homes, but less to be found for first-time buyers. And no properties to house incoming people that weren’t in the market for a custom home. At that time, the city had contracted a residential developer who had purchased 92 acres that would be annexed by the city and have all city utilities supplied to the development. The initial plan was for 240 lots for single-family housing, as well as some townhomes and duplexes. There was also talk of a 48-unit apartment complex going into the north of the city. “We have now seen some progress in this area,” County Judge D.J. Wagner