Belding

Belding is on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe tracks ten miles southwest of Fort Stockton in Pecos County. The community was named for A. N. Belding, director of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway. The proposed town was laid out in April 1913 by Horace H. Stevens and John Brooks, trustees of the Davenport Irrigation and Land Associates Company. Lots in the townsite were reserved for a town square, a hotel, a general store, a pump company, a lumberyard, a hardware store, and stockyards. Track construction of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient reached Belding in the same year. After the hotel was built, plans to develop Belding were abandoned because it became apparent that the limited water supply could be utilized only with expensive electrical pumping. The hotel was later moved to Leon Lake. Nevertheless, in 1986 Belding remained a quiet farming community.