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In 1879 the area was opened up for homesteading but the
first settler did not arrive until the fall of 1899. N.J.
Whitfield purchased the future town site for $1.00 per acre and in
1903 sold a 100-foot strip across Oldham County to the Choctaw,
Oklahoma,
and
Texas
(later the Rock Island) Railroad as a right-of-way. Sitting in a
vast prairie, the town was named for the Spanish word for Meadow.
In the same year the town site was surveyed and the first store was
opened by A.M. Miller.
In 1904,
Vega saw
the arrival of a post office, the ever present
saloon
and a school, which doubled as a Masonic Lodge. In 1907,
ranching brothers Pat and John Landergin purchased part of the LS
Ranch, bringing in more settlers to the community. The next year
the Landergins established a bank and when the railroad was completed
in 1908, the town added a number of stores, two churches, a hotel and
a blacksmith shop. Coming into its own, a newspaper called the
Vega Sentinel was founded in March, 1909. Continuing to
thrive, the Vega Sentinel proclaimed in 1914 of
Vega:
HOME OF
OPPORTUNITY -- VEGA HAS THE FOLLOWING BUSINESS PLACES
Grandest Hotels in the County
Largest Bank in County
Only Printing Office in County
n 1915
Vega won a
five-year battle with nearby town of Tascosa for the rights of County
Seat. The county business was, at first, conducted in the Oldham
Hotel until a permanent courthouse could be built. It wasn’t
until 1927 that the town finally incorporated. Just a few years
later, on May 3, 1931, a fire leveled six of its downtown buildings
west of the courthouse square. Unfortunately, another fire just
two months later destroyed two more businesses north of the square and
Vega got busy with
establishing a formal water system within the town.
When
Route 66
arrived, Vega
began to really develop with tourist courts, gas stations, shops and
services for the many travelers of the
Mother Road.
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