Willingham Store

Lenorah is fourteen miles north of Stanton in central Martin County. Charlie Tom and his family built a ranch house one mile north of the site in 1894, and Hiram Nunn filed on land east of town in 1902; but J. F. Willingham and his family, who arrived in 1906 or 1908, are considered the founders of the town. A one-room school called Plainview was built just south of the Willingham home, and Mittie Walker served as teacher. Church services were also held in the school. A post office was granted in 1925, and Willingham became postmaster, but postal officials would not accept the name Plainview, since there was already a Plainview in West Texas. Residents renamed the town Lenorah for Lenorah Epley, the county clerk. In 1950 the Lenorah school was consolidated, and students began attending the Grady school. Oil discoveries in Martin County in the 1950s led to the founding of the Lenorah Hot Oil Company, which later moved to Andrews. Oil production and farming remained the area's major industries in 1990, when Lenorah had two cotton gins, a grocery and hardware store, the T. S. T. Paraffin Service, a post office, and Baptist and Catholic churches. In 1980 the community had a population of seventy and four businesses. Through 2000 the population was still recorded as seventy.