Buffalo

Hobbs is at the junction of Farm roads 611 and 1614, in west central Fisher County. In the mid-1880s a number of homesteaders moved into the area, including the Wilhite, Clegg, Brown, and Martin families. Baptist preacher Robert Martin held camp meetings and opened a school in the community in 1887, using a tent until a combination school and church building was erected the following year. The church-school was called Buffalo, for its location on Buffalo Creek. A post office opened in the Martin home in 1888, and residents chose the name Hobbs, for Vachel Hobbs Anderson, a local settler. A Methodist church was built in 1903. About 1908 a new school building was erected, and the name of the school was changed to Hobbs as well. By 1914 the community had a general store, telephone service, and a population of forty-five. The post office was discontinued in 1915. At various times the town had several general stores, a doctor, a Woodmen of the World lodge, and a blacksmith shop. In 1925 a number of small schools consolidated with Hobbs to form the Hobbs Rural High School District, and a two-story brick high school was completed three miles north of Hobbs. Though a general store and a number of dwellings remained at the old Hobbs site, the new school gradually became the center of this dispersed community. Faced with declining membership, the Methodist church was torn down in 1927. Hobbs received electricity in 1939, and in 1940 the community had three businesses, the school, the Baptist church, a number of scattered dwellings, and a population of seventy. The Hobbs Co-op Gin was organized in the 1940s. The Hobbs high school was replaced with a new building in 1956. From 1970 through 2000 the population of the community was estimated at ninety-one. In 1989 the Hobbs school was closed, and the remaining pupils were transferred to Rotan, Roby, or Snyder.