Sunday, May 19, 2002

Wide Open Spaces beckon to visitors

By Larry Zelisko
Reporter-News Staff Writer

Welcome to the Wide Open Spaces tour. Our destination is Clairemont, a ghost town in Kent County, the least populated county in the Big Country. Our goal is to leave the traffic behind, to get away from it all.

In keeping with the theme, start where there are no buildings — perhaps one of Abilene’s 26 parks or a lot full of wildflowers.

Take U.S. Highway 83 north to Anson. Make a note to come back to shop in a few months once a beautification project is completed around the courthouse.

Just after 83 veers toward Hamlin, flat red fields surround you. These are cotton fields, holding the hopes of farmers that the rains will fall at the right time, that the price of cotton will be high and that a bumper crop is on the way.

You’re in the country now, off the four-lane highway. Traffic is lighter. You’re more likely to meet pickups — many of them diesels or duallies. And the drivers are more likely to raise a finger or hand off the steering wheel in a friendly wave.

Still, this is too busy. To press our quest to get away a step further, take Farm Road 1835 from Hamlin to Old Glory. Here, passing through the Swenson Flat Top Ranch, the road is empty except for dove.

At Old Glory, stop at the only business and buy tickets for a quilt to be raffled on the Fourth of July. The raffle is the only gambling in town. You can’t buy a Lotto ticket because the isolated community’s phone lines can’t handle computer connections, said Joe Castro, owner of the Mercantile of Old Glory.

On to Aspermont and you may think you’ve reached the middle of nowhere — but you’re only at the edge. Clairemont to the west or Guthrie, home of the Four Sixes Ranch, to the north make Aspermont look bustling.

Continuing west, we reach Clairemont. It is deserted as expected.

The Kent County Show Barn is still used, but other buildings are abandoned. At the center of what was the town is the old red sandstone courthouse. Nearby is the jail, clearly not a place any one would want to stay. The bars on the windows and cages inside the small building are frightening.

Exploring the old jail gives a sense of desolation that makes you want to get back to it all.