A small town in the northeastern Texas Panhandle. It's the county seat of Ochiltree County and has a population of less than 8,000 people. The economy is dominated by agriculture, particularly wheat farming and cattle ranching, and some pig farming, though quite a bit of money is made growing soybeans, sorghum, corn, and sunflowers. Some money is also made from oil and gas, but the energy industry has declined quite a bit from its heyday in previous decades.

Weather in Perryton is often funky. It's plenty hot in the summer, but it's often very, very cold in the winter, far colder than any of the surrounding counties. For this reason, it's sometimes called "The Icebox of Texas" (though the Chamber of Commerce prefers "Wheatheart of the Nation"). I've heard from more than one person who told me about traveling through Perryton, stopping for the night, then getting stuck in town for several months after several feet of snow fall overnight -- though, to be honest, Perryton hasn't had a real record-breaking snowfall in years. Truly severe weather has been rare, but in the summer of 2023, a large tornado ripped through the town, tearing up several blocks of downtown and destroying over 3,000 homes. 

The history of Perryton is also a bit odd. Originally, there were two towns, Ochiltree, Texas, and Gray, Oklahoma, located about 20 miles apart. Agricultural communities rely on good transportation to get their products to market, and in the early years of the 20th Century, that meant that you had to have easy access to a railroad. However, when the railroad was built, it passed about midway between Ochiltree and Gray -- too far to be useful for most of the farmers and ranchers. So in 1919, the two towns decided to merge. They scooped their homes and businesses off their foundations and literally moved their towns to the railroad. This was quite an engineering feat back then, and it got national attention, including a cover article in "Popular Mechanics."

For some reason, most of the out-of-towners pronounce the name of the city as "Perrington." Now, I say this with love in my heart, but IT'S NOT PERRINGTON! IT'S PERRYTON! NO "G"!

Stuff to do when visiting Perryton? There isn't a whole lot. If you thrive on nightlife, mall-hopping, and water parks, you should travel elsewhere. The Museum of the Plains, located north of town, is excellent, entertaining, and larger than you might expect, with exhibits on pioneer life, prehistoric animals, geology, and all the usual history museum stuff. Perryton's parks are excellent, as is the swimming pool. The city has fairly good shopping, though nothing particularly fancy. Lake Fryer and Wolf Creek Park, located a few miles southeast of town, have boating, fishing, camping, nice scenery, and an excellent rustic restaurant called the Lobo. There's also an archeological dig, called the Buried City, which has yielded lots of interesting information about early inhabitants of the region. And the city gets some visitors because Perryton is the hometown of John Erickson, the creator of the popular "Hank the Cowdog" series of children's books.

And of course, you can sit on the porch and watch the stars, go to the high school football games, or visit with the neighbors over the back fence. Could be worse.

Research from http://www.perryton.com and from living there for a number of years.

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