Ragtown theater tells the story of the beginnings of Post

Traveling from Amarillo to Abilene, thousands of cars pass right through the middle of the unassuming little community of Post, Texas. Few of those travelers are aware of the town’s grand and colorful history.

In 1907, an eccentric millionaire inventor from Battle Creek, Michigan, set out to establish what he envisioned as a utopian city. His name was C.W. Post, the inventor of Grape Nuts and Elijah’s Manna, which would later be renamed Post Toasties. He had also created and successfully marketed Postum, a grain-based coffee substitute. His breakfast foods were widely sold all over the United States, thanks to Post’s keen advertising and marketing instincts, making him wealthy enough to pursue yet another ambitious dream.

The site he chose for his utopian city, was the mid-point of the eastern border of the fertile plains of the Llano Estacado, which he correctly predicted would become one of the most vibrant agricultural production regions in the world. He strategically located Post City, Texas, to become the funnel through which that vast region’s food and fiber products would flow, via the growing railway freight system, to markets across the nation.

The vast reserves of oil that lay just a few hundred feet below the surface, were yet to be discovered when Post purchased almost a quarter of a million acres, and divided much of the land into 160-acre farms. On each quarter section plot, his Double U land company committed to building a sturdy house, a barn, drilling a well, and even planting trees and flowers. As he had pioneered national marketing campaigns for his breakfast foods, he also advertised across the country to prospective farm owners to come and “make money in Texas.”

The original site Post chose for his city was actually six miles west of the present town, just above the Caprock escarpment. When the Santa Fe railroad balked at laying track that would necessitate traversing the rugged caprock canyons and mesas to reach his townsite, Post initially threatened to start his own competing railway company.

Before it came to that, the headstrong visionary received notice from the State of Texas that his town would not be named the county seat, because he had located it six miles west of the geographic center of Garza county. Post solved both issues by moving the town. In its new location in the shadow of the Caprock, Post City became the county seat, with the Santa Fe railroad tracks right at the eastern end of its broad main street.

Pulling into the gleaming new Post City train depot, rail travelers coming up from Abilene and points south, on their way to Amarillo and beyond, would be slowing to a stop as they passed by Postex Cotton Mill, where south plains cotton was transformed into bedsheets and pillowcases marketed across the country. They might choose to stay the night at the grand Algerita Hotel, which C.W. Post designed and built, or stroll along the wide sidewalks under the awnings of the main street businesses. They might well have admired the skill of the Samson brothers, Scottish stone masons hired and brought to America by C.W. Post, to build the perfect business district for his utopian city. Travelers would almost certainly have heard accounts of the millionaire cereal inventor’s “rain battles.”

The lack of rainfall was the greatest challenge to newly established farmers on the South Plains. It was a challenge C.W. Post met head-on. Long fascinated by the great battles of history, he was struck by the recurring accounts of extraordinary rainfall that seemed to consistently follow in the wake of heavy artillery fire. He became convinced that it was the concussion of the cannonading that produced the precipitation. Acting on his hunch, he purchased tens of thousands of pounds of dynamite. He waged intense “rain battles” along the rim of the caprock, setting off successive rounds of explosions, in the belief that the compression of the atmosphere would produce rain. For a time, he even attempted attaching explosives to kites, hoping to deliver a more effective charge closer to the rain source. It was a tactic the cowboys he’d hired to set off the dynamite were likely happy to see him abandon.

For decades the stories often shared with visitors included accounts of the storm that struck the temporary tent city at the original townsite “up on the Cap.” The fierce winds of that memorable storm shredded all the tents into rags, and scattered the newcomers’ belongings across the prairie. The small community that remains at the original location is called “Ragtown” by local residents to this day.

Brothers Glenn and Chip Polk grew up hearing those stories first-hand from the people who were there alongside C.W. Post in the early part of the last century. They both have memories of the Golden Jubilee, fifty years after the founding, when many of those early settlers celebrated the anniversary with attending Hollywood celebrities of the day, Danny Thomas, Spring Byington, and Danny Kaye, among others. Post’s granddaughter, the glamorous Dena Merrill had just made her 1957 film debut in a movie with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Reigning over it all, including the unveiling of her father’s statue, was the regal Marjorie Merriweather Post, C.W. Post’s only child, and heir to his breakfast food empire. It was an empire she had multiplied exponentially, by expanding the Post Cereal Company into the multi-brand conglomerate, General Foods. Her success was aided in no small part to an advertising slogan conceived by her husband, E.F. Hutton. " Breakfast...the most important meal of the day” was never true, but it sold a lot of cereal. C.W. Post would have most certainly approved.

All those original settlers are gone now, but the Polk brothers are doing their best to assure the unique story of their hometown’s founding is remembered.

Glenn and Chip Polk grew up hearing tales about the founding of Post City. Their neighbors were original settlers, whose families heard about the opportunity for a prosperous future that C.W. Post was offering out in West Texas. They had traveled by covered wagon from all across the country, their confidence buoyed by the promises of the millionaire cereal inventor.

Gladys Wood, who lived two doors down the block from the Polks, was just old enough to be terrified, and stared wide-eyed as her family’s covered wagon was turned around and backed down the steep road cut into the canyon wall under the Caprock. Just across the back alley from the brothers, lived Joe Callis, a quintessential Texas cowboy, who was one of the muleskinners hired by Post to drive mule teams pulling tandem rigged wagons filled with everything required to build a new town on the prairie. The young brothers knew the colorful George “Scotty” Samson, who C.W. Post had brought from Scotland, to build the business district of the town.

The stories were everywhere, because the people who’d lived those stories were everywhere. It had been the most exciting time of their lives, and as they grew older, their appreciation grew, for just how extraordinary that experience had been. They never tired of talking about the times they met C.W. Post, about his epic rain battles, the barbecues and all-night dances, and the sheer audacity of the millionaire cereal inventor who came out to the South Plains of Texas, intent on building a utopian city.

The Polk brothers grew up and left their hometown. The people, whose stories had fueled their imagination, grew old and passed on. The stories were told less and less often. Eventually, the utopian city C.W. Post had envisioned, seemed to be not unlike all the other small towns scattered across the South Plains.

But the pioneer spirit of those rare people, who had been bold enough to join the eccentric millionaire in his grand new adventure, seemed to beckon to Glenn and Chip Polk. An idea that had been planted by Maxine Durrett, the daughter of C.W. Post’s bookkeeper, kept stirring Chip’s imagination.

She had seen Paul Greene’s musical, Texas, staged in the new amphitheater in Palo Duro Canyon, near Amarillo, and came home with the idea of a musical that celebrated Post’s unique beginnings. Chip Polk was still in high school when he first heard Maxine’s idea. Thirty years later, he began to write “Ragtown!” It would be another twenty years before the musical was finally staged for the first time in the summer of 2020.

Glenn Polk spent those decades directing and acting in scores of plays. In 2007, he and his brother opened Ragtown Gospel Theater back in their hometown. Their original intention was admittedly ambitious. They planned to build an amphitheater alongside the gospel theater. They would stage “Ragtown!” in the amphitheater in the summers, and the gospel plays Chip wrote, and Glenn directed and performed, throughout the remainder of the year indoors.

They built Ragtown Gospel Theater first. The lobby, concession, and restroom facilities were designed to serve both theaters. However, the promise of financial backing to build the amphitheater never materialized. Ragtown Gospel Theater, in the meantime, thrived, even during the recent extended shutdown of most group travel. For the past sixteen years, its three productions staged each year draw audiences from Amarillo to Abilene, Eastern New Mexico, and beyond.

Toward the end of the 2019 season, with the many unknowns surrounding Covid posing a serious threat to the future of the theater, the Polk brothers came to a decision. If they were able to continue live productions, after all the years of waiting, they would finally stage the musical, “Ragtown!”

In a way, the decision to scale down the production for the indoor stage mirrored C.W. Post’s decision to move the town. It wasn’t his original plan, but it just made sense.

The 33 plays Chip has written, his brother, Glenn, has directed and performed, in their shared commitment to convey the person and the promise of Jesus Christ through music and every drama they stage. During the rehearsals leading up to that first performance of “Ragtown!” it became obvious to everyone involved, that God had a hand in the delay. The timing for the story could not be more perfect. The powerful message presented in this play is one every Christian will wish the whole nation could see and embrace today

In the summer of 2020, the first audience saw the story unfold, punctuated by the amazing orchestration of Chip Polk’s eight original songs, created by arranger Andy Patterson. C.W. Post and a large, colorful cast of settlers, cowboys, an enigmatic rainmaker, and an irrepressible woman of God, all came to life on the stage. And it happened amid a tornado, dynamite explosions, dancing, laughter, a tender love story, and a memorable and moving moment of redemption. Once again, the incredible tale of Post City’s founding was being told.

The mission of the productions at Ragtown Gospel Theater is one shared, not only by the brothers, but with their wives. Robin Polk designed and continues to decorate the stunning theater, in addition to handling reservations and the theater gift shop. Twila Polk is her husband’s assistant director, coordinates volunteers, and manages the snack concessions.

A committed group of volunteers, drawn to the mission of Ragtown Gospel Theater, share the myriad duties of operating the theater, building sets, performing in productions, and generously supporting the ministry in countless ways. It is a loving family of faith which, like the plays produced at the theater, crosses all denominational, generational, and cultural barriers.

In July and August, again this year, the story will be vividly brought to life again. At eight performances on Saturdays at 3 p.m., you can experience something uplifting, unforgettable, and maybe even eternal. Don’t miss “Ragtown!”at Ragtown Gospel Theater in historic Post.

For more information about “Ragtown!” the musical, and other productions at Ragtown Gospel Theater, visit RAGTOWN.COM or call 877-RAGTOWN.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Ragtown theater tells the story of the beginnings of Post