Matthew “Bones” Hooks

As part of the “Share the Story” project, biographies of the 45 individuals who were chosen as one of the “History Makers of the High Plains” by the “Amarillo Globe News” in 2000, and who are buried at Llano Cemetery, are being published individually in the Llano Messenger.

Matthew “Bones” Hooks, who was born to former slaves, is best remembered as a famed cowboy, an Amarillo civic leader and the first black person to serve on a Potter County grand jury.

Hooks was also a religious leader and businessman who lived in the early Texas Panhandle towns of Mobeetie and Clarendon. He worked to establish the North Heights subdivision in Amarillo.

Hooks, a cowboy and horse breaker, was born on Nov. 3, 1867, in Robertson County. At 7, he began work as the driver of a butcher’s meat wagon, and at 9 began driving a chuck wagon for Steve Donald. Hooks became one of the first black cowboys to work alongside whites as a ranch hand.

He remained with Donald until adulthood and then joined the J.R. Norris ranch on the Pecos River. With Norris, he made many trail drives from the Pecos country, raised horses in partnership with a white man and became a top horse breaker.

Hooks lived at Mobeetie before moving to Clarendon as a ranch hand in 1886. He operated a grocery store near Texarkana, but after 18 months returned to Clarendon. While working as a cowboy, he established one of the first black churches in West Texas.

He worked as a cowboy at Clarendon until 1900, when he became a porter at an Amarillo hotel. In 1910, he took a job as a porter on the Santa Fe Railroad, where he worked for the next 20 years.

He retired from the railroad in 1930 and became a civic worker in Amarillo. He had a concern for young people and served as “Range Boss” for the Dogie Club, an organization for underprivileged black children.

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