Vega sits on I-40 where Route 66 once brought tourist courts, on the fine sandy loam and caliche ground of Oldham County. That ground handles water differently from the clay east of Amarillo.
Tell us what the water is doing and we’ll call you back to set up a free on-site look.
Vega sits on I-40 where Route 66 once brought tourist courts, on the fine sandy loam and caliche ground of Oldham County. That ground handles water differently from the clay east of Amarillo.
Vega's name is Spanish for 'plain' or 'meadow,' and the town sits on Interstate 40 in southern Oldham County, about thirty miles west of Amarillo. N. J. Whitfield bought the future townsite in 1899, sold a 100-foot right-of-way strip to the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Texas Railroad early in 1903, and the townsite was surveyed that May. In 1915 Vega took the county seat from Tascosa.
The Handbook of Texas credits tourist courts and other traveler businesses on U.S. 66, now I-40, with greatly boosting the town's economy, and it lists several motels, grain elevators, implement houses and government offices among the town's businesses and offices. A town with that much roof and pavement sends a lot of rain somewhere in a hurry.
Oldham County's soils, in the Handbook's description, are fine sandy loam and caliche that support native grasses, mesquite, sage and shin oak but are not generally suited to farming, which is why ranching drives the county economy. That's a different starting point from the heavy clays found east of Amarillo.
Sandy loam usually lets water in without much argument. Trouble starts when that water reaches a cemented caliche layer and can't keep going down. It moves laterally along the hard layer, and in a yard it can reappear at a low spot or work toward a foundation. When we dig a test hole in Vega, the depth to that layer is the first thing we write down, because it decides how deep a French drain can usefully go.
The full range of fixes, chosen for what your lot is actually doing — start with why yards here hold water:
In 1931 a fire destroyed six buildings west of the courthouse square, and the Handbook says it prompted Vega to establish a city water system. The town had incorporated four years earlier, and a volunteer fire department followed in 1947.
For a downtown building or a business near the interstate, drainage is usually about roofs and pavement: downspouts dumping onto a slab edge, a parking area that sheds toward the door, or a buried line that has filled with grit. Those fixes range from regrading to drain repair.
The Handbook says Oldham County's history has revolved around the Canadian River, which enters Texas at about the midpoint of the county's western line and crosses its northern part. Across the Panhandle the river runs mostly in a gorge 500 to 800 feet below the plateau, and the county's grassland is broken by the river and its many intermittent tributaries. Elevations range from about 3,200 to 4,200 feet, with roughly 19.5 inches of rain a year.
Rural property north of Vega that starts falling toward those tributaries needs drainage that controls speed as well as volume, since a swale cut too steep will scour itself into a gully. On those slopes we lean toward broad, shallow swales lined with grass or rock and, where water has to drop, a series of short steps instead of one long run.
Call (806) 606-0904 for a free on-site assessment in Vega, no obligation. Let us know whether it's a home, a shop or a business lot, and we'll follow up by phone to schedule the visit. If you're between here and Amarillo, our Bushland page covers the clay country to the east.
Free on-site drainage assessments in Vega and across the Panhandle. Call or send the form and we’ll set up a time to look.