24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Barstow, TX

Barstow is a small city in southwestern Ward County, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 80 and Farm Road 516 on the old Missouri Pacific Railroad line, about five miles east of Pecos.

The Texas and Pacific Railway reached Barstow in 1881, and the townsite was laid out and a post office established about ten years later.

Barstow was organized in 1892 by and named for George E. Barstow, a Rhode Island land promoter who was one of the world's leading experts on irrigation.

When Ward County was organized in 1892, Barstow became its first county seat, and a courthouse built of red sandstone was completed the following year.

Through the Barstow Improvement Company, George Barstow recruited settlers to buy Pecos River-irrigated farmland, pushing Barstow's population to 1,103 by 1900 and 1,219 by 1910.

Barstow's irrigated agriculture was successful enough that the town won a silver medal for its grapes at the 1904 World's Fair.

When the Pecos River dam broke in 1904 and droughts followed for a number of years, Barstow's farming industry essentially fell apart, and its population dropped to 468 by 1930.

In 1938, after oil was discovered in the area, Monahans won a contested election to replace Barstow as the Ward County seat, ending Barstow's 46 years as county seat.

The 2020 census counted only 265 people in Barstow, living in 100 households, of which 88 were families.

Barstow is one of the rare towns in Texas where the founder and namesake, George E. Barstow, is buried in the local cemetery.