Sample book with community resources insert

“We have a can-do attitude. If it’s worth doing, we can
do it.”
That was how former Mayor Norm Archibald described
Abilene in an Abilene Reporter-News article prior to the
city’s 135th birthday celebration on March 15, 2016.
Those words could well describe Abilene’s heritage. If it
hadn’t been for a can-do spirit, developers wouldn’t have
chosen this particular spot on the prairie for the “Future
Great City of West Texas.”
On the day the town lots were sold a reporter for the
Galveston Daily News, who was sent out west to record the
proceedings, painted a picture of what he saw. Each day, he
reported, new arrivals stepped out of Texas & Pacific
Railroad passenger cars to begin life in a new city.
“Upon sunrise,” he wrote, “they would see nothing but
vast prairies and a sea of white canvas.”
If only that reporter could see Abilene now. The vast prairies
remain but the sea of white canvas tents has been replaced by a
sparkling city of beautiful homes, schools, medical facilities,
cultural sites, an Air Force base, and businesses of every type to
serve 120,000 people.
Fort Phantom Hill.
CHAPTER ONE
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