His Father Said "Never Mortgage the Land for a Tractor" in 1953 His Son Didn't Listen, and the 1955
Hale County, Texas, 1953 to 1957. Two Hatcher men, a father and a son, farm a 320-acre cotton place on the Texas High Plains forty miles south of Amarillo. In the spring of 1953, on the strength of a record cotton year, a Ford-Ferguson dealer's pitch, and his own confidence, the son Travis signs a note at the Plainview Production Credit Association for a brand-new 1953 Ford NAA "Golden Jubilee" tractor and a deep irrigation well — and against his father's one quiet rule that he had been told twice. By the autumn of 1957, the worst drought the Texas Panhandle has seen since the Dust Bowl has stripped the topsoil off half the county, and the Plainview PCA owns Travis's new tractor, his irrigation well, his pickup, his quarter section of land, and his name. What he keeps — because his father refused to put it on any note — is the 1935 John Deere Model GP that has stood under the tin-roofed shop shed of the home section since the year his father bought it, and a single quiet rule he is finally listening to. This is a dramatised story. The historical setting — the early-1950s Texas High Plains cotton boom, the Texas drought of 1954–57, Production Credit Association lending of the period, and the equipment of the era — is real; the characters, dialogue, and specific events are fictional and created for storytelling. Subscribe — a new story every few days. #FarmStories #JohnDeere #TexasHighPlains #OldIron #FarmHistory #FarmStories #JohnDeere #JohnDeereGP #TexasHighPlains #TexasPanhandle #OldIron #VintageTractor #1950s #TexasDrought #DustBowl #DebtFreeFarming #FarmCrisis #CottonFarming #ForgottenHistory #TrueToLifeStory
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