Window on the Plains Museum
Window on the Plains Museum offers displays of ranching, farming, industrial, business, and family life exhibits of the Texas Panhandle during the late 19th and 20th centuries. It is located in Dumas, the seat of Moore County, at 1820 South Dumas Avenue on the common United States Highways 287 and 87. Dumas is approximately fifty miles north of Amarillo.
Originally housed in the ballroom of the landmark Sneed Hotel and first known as the Moore County Historical Museum, the facility was dedicated on Bicentennial Day, July 4, 1976. It was relocated in 2001 to a modern building on a 10-acre (40,000 m2) tract in southwest Dumas and renamed "Window on the Plains." The facility also houses a research and archives center, and the Moore County Art Association is located next door.
The origin of the museum dates to January 1976, when representatives of the Moore County Historical Commission, the art association, and the Bicentennial Committee met to consider the establishment of a county museum. Collier Phillips, then president of the historical commission, was elected temporary chairman. A steering committee met with the county commissioners in February to seek permission to use the first floor of the hotel, now the Lew Haile Annex. The building had been donated to the county by Elizabeth Sneed Pool Robinette. The commissioners agreed to the proposal, work soon began on remodeling, building exhibit areas, acquiring and placing artifacts, and documenting records. Some fifty-two persons donated more than five thousand hours of labor, having completed the task in time for the formal dedication on July 4.
The museum contains a section on the local history of Dumas and Moore County. The origin of the city dates to 1891 when it was laid out by the Panhandle Townsite Company, headed by Louis Dumas (April 16, 1856—January 5, 1923), originally from Sister Grove near Dallas. Dumas and his wife, Florence (November 17, 1861—June 9, 1927), originally from Pilot Point in Denton County, were living near Dallas, when they lost a daughter, Johnnie (1881–1888). Dumas came to Moore County, while his grief-stricken wife stayed behind for a time before she joined her husband. After a blizzard again devastated Dumas in 1895, the couple returned to Sherman, the seat of Grayson County, where they died four years apart during the 1920s. Dumas hence lived only about seven years in the Panhandle city which bears his name.
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