Clara

Herman Specht migrated in 1870 to Galveston from Germany. In 1884 he married Clara M. Vogel Lange (1853 - 1912). A wealthy widow, adding to earlier property holdings in Galveston, he began buying extensive tracts of land in Northern Wichita County, which eventually totaled 21,000 acres. In 1886 he platted the town of Clara which he named for his wife. The streets were named for Texas heroes. He donated this site for the Trinity Lutheran Church. Specht advertised for German colonists from other states to settle here.

Specht built his home in Iowa Park in 1890 and ran a ranch at Clara where he grew wheat. North of the Church site he had a large experimental nursery for unusual plants. The 1891 drought wiped out the nursery and Specht's crops. The 1900 Galveston storm destroyed the ramainder of their vast holdings.

Clara included a church, schools, store, garage and post office. Hampered by an inadequate water supply, the town began to decline with the consolidation of the school with the Burkburnett schools. During the oil boom of the 1920's, many residents moved to Wichita Falls. Good roads and cars made it possible to shop elsewhere. The town finally vanished except for the church, rectory and cemetery.

The Receiver Bridge

A natural border of the louisiana Territory when it was acquired by the United States in 1803, the Red River later served as a boundary between the states of Texas and Oklahoma. The exact location for the line of separation was challenged in 1920 soon after an extension of the Burkburnett oil field led to increased drilling activity in the area, including the banks and the bed of the stream. Since the Red River meandered, causing wide flood plains, the state of Oklahoma initiated a suit to determine ownership of the land. By authority of the United States Supreme Court, the disputed land was temporarily placed under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Frederick A. Delano, whose nephew Franklin Delano Roosevelt later became President of the United States, was named as the receiver in charge of the property. As part of his plan of supervision, he had a one-lane wooden bridge built to the center of the river, providing access to the drilling sites.

The boundary between the two states was set as the south bank of the Red River in 1923. It was not until four years later that a special commission completed the actual survey work. The bridge was partially destroyed later during a 1935 flood.