Biohazard Cleanup Near West Channing Channing, TX

Channing is a town in the Texas Panhandle that serves as the county seat of Hartley County, located at the junction of U.S. Highway 87 and U.S. Highway 385 about 30 miles south of Dalhart.

Channing was founded in 1888 by George Channing Rivers, a paymaster for the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway, and was originally called Rivers before being renamed Channing later that same year because another Texas town already used the name Rivers.

Channing is described as the only town in the Texas Panhandle that truly developed directly from the legendary XIT Ranch, and it served as the ranch's general headquarters.

Surveyor Willis D. Twitchell platted Channing's business district in 1891.

It took two elections, in November 1896 and again in 1903, for Channing to wrest the county seat from the town of Hartley, and in 1903 XIT cowboys famously hauled the frame courthouse to Channing on wheels.

A brick courthouse replaced the frame one in 1906 and is now a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, while the old frame courthouse became the Hotel Rivers.

The old XIT Ranch office building in Channing is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1908, when the population was about 600, a local women's club established one of the first public libraries in the Texas Panhandle in Channing.

A fire on September 6, 1931 destroyed seven buildings in Channing's business district.

Channing was not formally incorporated until 1960, more than 70 years after its founding.