Hoffman Barn

In the early 20th Century, Lawrence H. Jones drove cattle from ranch land in Scurry County to the Texas and Pacific railhead at Colorado City, Texas. From there the cattle were shipped to the Fort Worth stockyards. During each drive, Jones shipped 8 to 10 carloads of cattle with each cattle car holding 30 to 40 cows.
The Jones family came to early Scurry County as homesteaders, and he built the barn to have a place to rest and feed cattle. Built in 1906, Jones used the barn until the Santa Fe railroad came to Snyder in 1911. Then the family began farming and used the barn to store John Deere tractors.

The barn measures 64 feet by 34 feet and reaches up to a peak at 23 feet. Built to shelter livestock, the barn had interior stalls, a feed loft and exterior pens connected to the building. Constructed entirely of wood, the barn, roof and walls were painted red numerous times and withstood the West Texas weather for more than a century. The barn stood alongside a windmill and tank constructed to furnish water to a small house nearby.

One of the Jones daughters married a Hoffman, and the land where the barn was built has stayed in the Johnny Hoffman family since that time. L.H. Jones originally built the barn on land just north of Snyder, Texas near the intersection of Highway 84 and Camp Springs Road. The building was donated to the NRHC by Johnny Hoffman of Weatherford, Texas who is the administrator for the Hoffman Family Trust.