In the early 1870’s, the last Comanche Chief, Quanah Parker, surrendered his tribe to the U.S Military officials at the Kiowa/Comanche reservation, located near Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  This action opened up western Texas to settlement by the early day Texans.  One of the first settlers was Billy Knight who established a trading post on the banks of a creek that was later called Sweetwater Creek. He chose that site because there was abundant spring water nearby.  The early explorers called it the Blue Goose watering hole because it was frequented by great blue herons on their annual migration.  Not knowing they were herons, they were referred to as blue geese.  The name stuck.

Other pioneers also settled in the area and it soon became a small community that residents began calling Sweet Water because of the water found in the creek.  In 1881 the Texas Pacific Railroad’s expansion reached  the area about a mile north of the community.  Residents decided to move their homes to higher ground and to the railhead. The same year the town of Sweetwater was chartered.  In 1889, Martin Newman and his wife Betty purchased the land on and around the old watering hole and established the Blue Goose Ranch. Martin had moved here from Navarro County, Texas following his son, James F Newman, who had settled near Sylvester, Texas in 1879.

Great Blue Heron

 

Martin Newman

Circa 1905