Bead-Tarzan Pale Green Stone Square TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

While the TB owner lives on the Southern High Plains in the Panhandle of northwest Texas, he has spent considerable time in what many Texans would call Far West Texas.  It remains a favorite part of the state.  Much of it is the Chihuahuan Desert.  In the desert are remotes outposts of civilization and even mountains that rise high enough to harbor junipers and pines.  This travel bug commemorates a favorite place in the region, partly because the history and partly because of memories.

Tarzan is on State Highway 176 in central Martin County. Tant Lindsay built a store which, along with the school, formed the center of the community. In 1927 Lindsay submitted a list of possible town names to the post office department that included the name of the popular comic strip character.  Postal officials chose Tarzan and made Lindsay the first postmaster. There's no telling how many names had been submitted and rejected.

The turning point for the town came around 1938, when it was learned that a highway was to be built from Big Spring to Andrews and would pass through Tarzan.  JT Glaze promptly built a combination grocery and gas station.  The discovery of oil in Martin County in the 1950s led to the establishment of the Tarzan Hot Oil Company; oil production remains a major industry, and oil wells dot the surrounding area. From 1980 through 2000 approximately eighty people lived in Tarzan.