04/23/2026
Interesting story that tells a little history about Sweetwater’s Mustang Bowl. From the special edition Sweetwater Reporter In 1999.
“A Century-End Look at Nolan County.”
CCC helped West Texas and nation ride out Depression
Other than war, the most stressful era in Nolan County and the nation was a time starting in the late 1920s and lasting up to the early 1940s.
The Dust Bowl days and the Depression coincided for a few years.
The two catastrophes combined ruined farms, closed banks and industries and created widespread unemployment and poverty.
The U.S. government tried to counter this widespread desolation.
Make-work programs were created, with men (mostly) enlisted to build all manner of bridges, roads, park structures and sports arenas, among other things. The workers regained some pride and income and the nation had new projects that individual communities and government entities may never have built otherwise.
Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater was one of those projects, built in 1939 by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The late Harmon P. Norton was typical of those who joined the CCC during that era. He never was particularly famous, just typical.
The experience was much like the military service, he told the Sweetwater Reporter in 1993. He joined, was issued a uniform, was trained, shared living quarters with 50 young men in a long, open-bay barracks, got his three square meals a day, got all his medical and dental needs, and received some salary.
"I was so poor," he marveled, "and then I suddenly had three meals a day."
Norton came from poverty that was about as abject as any. His family farm near Lamesa in Dawson County simply dried up and blew away. "It was so dry, you could hardly breathe. I can remember one time when it didn't rain for six months, not even a trace."
The Norton family lived on $20 a month borrowed from a bank, but then the bank closed. "I remember we used to shake out all the Bull Durham and Duke's Mixture (to***co sacks) just to get enough to***co to make a cigarette," He said.
Then came the CCC. Norton joined in Dawson County and stayed there. He made $30 a month and was able to send $23 of it home.
That was the only income his family had. As he got promoted to corporal and then to sergeant, his pay increased to $36 and $45 per month.
His CCC unit landscaped, terraced, contoured, fenced and planted trees. They switched off between labor and driving trucks or heavy equipment. It was hard work, but honest and with no stigma.
But it was not all work and no play. Norton and four or five truckloads of men from Lamesa came to Lake Sweetwater for a swimming outing - something they couldn't do in a dry-to-the-bone Dawson County. He resigned from the CCC in 1937 - able to make it economically at last.
He moved to Sweetwater for good in 1981 and enjoyed a life of gardening and fishing until his death in 1995.
