For decades cotton was the scourge of this area, requiring plenty of cheap labor in exchange for deep poverty. I don’t have information about the number of sharecroppers in this area, but I know that the degrading, feudalistic system was common wherever cotton was king. The cattle industry and later railroad work provided an escape from servitude. In 1881, railroad construction near Proctor drew away so many sharecroppers that the Comanche Chief ran an article that noted, “never before known here, and at least three hundred acres on different farms will consequently go uncultivated this year. We want emigrants – men to till our rich soil.”