Our Town Brownfield: Festivals celebrate town’s history, economy

BROWNFIELD, Texas (KCBD) - Brownfield was founded in 1903. However, there’s often confusion regarding the name of the Terry County town. We were finally able to make sense of it all in this month’s coverage of “Our Town Brownfield”.

Brownfield is NOT named for it’s “brown fields,” which are known for producing cotton and peanuts. The town is actually named after Alfred Marion Brownfield.

“The town is named by him, even though our fields are brown, the dirt is brown here, and we see it every day flying around town. But, it’s actually named after he and and his family,” said Lorena Valencia, Brownfield Chamber of Commerce executive director.

To commemorate that heritage, area residents will celebrate their 75th Harvest Festival in October.

“Back in 1947, local farmers had two very bad years of drought. In 1947, they finally had a very abundant crop, and they wanted to celebrate,” Valencia said, “So, they closed the shops down and they all got together. 110 businessmen, I believe, got together and celebrated the Harvest Festival.”

The very-first Harvest Festival Queen, Glenna Winston Curtis, will be a part of this year’s celebration.

“She was crowned in 1947 as the very first Harvest Festival Queen, and she’s still alive today,” Valencia said. “She called me a couple months ago, and said ‘I want to be a part this year!’”

In Brownfield, much has changed in the last 75 years. City secretary Kelly Burris says the citizens are celebrating those changes while looking ahead.

“Fortunately, we’re really lucky we’re a small community that seems to be growing, and we’ve added some industry, added a new ballpark new schools hospital expansion. We’ve really tried to go above and beyond for our residents,” she said.

Another celebration, the Brownfield Fireworks Show, comes up Friday, July 1.

“We have the firework show down at Coleman Park and we did on July 1st this year. This is going to be the second annual,” said city manager Jeff Davis. “Last year was Brownfields 100th year anniversary, so this is our second year and our second annual firework show. They didn’t have it for about 20 years. We’ll actually have a fireworks show in the park, we’ll have a live band. We got some VIP parking, everything like that- to come out and join us.”

Copyright 2022 KCBD. All rights reserved.