Living way out there takes grit

Vinson is in Harmon County, which is smack dab up against the Texas Panhandle in Southwest Oklahoma.

Land around Vinson is pretty much empty. The Salt Fork of the Red River starts not too far west, in Texas, then flows south before cutting southeast and then east into Oklahoma.

The 2016 population was 178. The average household size is 2.7 people. I think we could round that up to 3. Only statisticians believe in decimal-people. Median age in Vinson is 44.1. United States median age is 37.4.

More numbers here: http://www.bestplaces.net/people/zip-code/oklahoma/vinson/73571

Here is a short video on Vinson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuIz5jV1upg

Hollywood actor and radio showman Rufe Davis was born and raised on a farm in Vinson. He was one of 12 children of William M. Davidson and Didama Tittle Davidson. Davis was railroad conductor Floyd Smoot on Petticoat Junction. He was also in a bunch of movies – Under Texas Skies, Lone Star Raiders and The Trail Blazers, all in 1940; seven more Westerns in 1941; and three in 1942. Wikipedia says Davis was in 30 movies between 1937-69. He died in 1974, at the age of 66.

Funny sometimes how things work out. A man gets a job and then another job and those jobs lead to something else, and pretty soon he’s looking back at 30 movies as he looks forward to television. I guess Rufe Davis learned grit and determination on that farm in Vinson, Okla.

(I might have already written about Vinson. This time sounds different, though.)