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ber, Jerome Gerber, fcjdwm Huse-man, Art Brockman, Gene Sch-nucker and Elmer Huseman.MARCH 3 Is the filing; deadlinefcr the city mayor's election, which will be April 3.Dyer, F. A. Smith. Paul Arm-: ents. ncKets may be purchased strong, Odell Cleaver, David Nel-jfrom United Methodist Youth son and L. B. Bowden. I members or at the door.HOWARD COOK US Weather ObserverDimmitt: portrait of a dynamic city(Editor’s Note: At the beginning of each year Don Nelson, munagingj editor, compiles the icws highlighls, facts figures and trends of the previous year for presentation t~ hwal eivie club*, and ecmes up with a lew predictions based on these trends. By request, we are reproducing his speer h here, in the ho|M* that some of the facts and figures in it may bo useful to you.)By DON NELSON This is my annual r.cxvs review and ciystal ball speech, in which I put together the news highlights of the past year and try to make some sense cut of them, so we can establish some i rends and perhaps make seme projections for the year to come.SOMETIMES, if we want to know whet the road is likely to be like over the next hill, it's best to look hick at the road behind as to get an indication.All the retuyms for 1970 aren't n yet. Agencies will be busy .or morphs to come, compiling statistics a .d tiyi.ig to pot citar-uleristics that will put 1970 into its rightful perspective.However, since 1970 was a census year, we have some concrete information on basic tacts a..a figures, and how they l elate to the decac’t? before. I'd like to fast delve i to some of this Census information—specifically, population, bank deposits and retail sales. You might find a surprise or two here.POPCLATIONIn 1960 .he population of Castro County was 8,923. Then, by 1970. it climbvd to 10,292, an increase of 15.3 percent.Dimmitt itself had 2,931 souls Within its boundaries in 1960. By 1970, the population had grown to 4 270, a healthy inc rease of 46 percent.Now, these percentages cv.n fool you if you don't look any farther. Let's do a little simple subtraction and come up with some concrete numbers.IN ACTUAL numbers of peoples the popula:icn inc rease during the decade was 1,369 for Castro County and 1,339 for Dimmitt.Tnic means. I suppose, that virtually all the countv's growth in jxipulatioi was centered in Dim-milt.But I don’t think this population growth was a result cf a straight influx of new people into the city cf Dimmitt. I think a population shift was probably at work here.You know, the farms in our county are fewer and larger than they were a decac’e ago. Quite a few of our farmers now operate two. three or four places in scattered areas of the County. Many of these farm operators have moved into town for the sake of convenience. which gives the city's population a boost; and many of the vacated farm houses have been filling up with more farm hands and their families, which keeps the county's population stable.AND OF course, a dynamic construction period has had its effect cn the city's population. I’ll ged into this construction activity a little later.Last week the Census Bureau issued its fi lal. updated figures These shew the county's official 1970 population xv'as actually 10.394 tntead of 10.292, as originally repo. tod. This is an inei e »se of 10- people, und hikes the county'sgrowth rate from 15.3 percent toj 17 percent—the statewide average But the Census Bureau hasn’t released a iv such final report for j cities and towns, so we can’t tell yet how many of these 102 people 1 i\ e inside on outside uie city limits.But xvhatex er the exact amount ctr cause of this population in-crease, it's good news. Dimmitt . 'd Castro County have been swimming upstream while the lest of North Texas has been floundering. While our county's population increased by 17 percent, the population of the Texas Panhandle as a whole decreased 5 percent.RETAIL SALESAnother interesting fact brought out by the Census cf 1970 was that retail sales in the county met eased 97 percent from I960 to 1970. In 1960 the county's le-.ail sales were $8.67 million. In 1970, they were $171 million.Here again, percentages can fool you. A big part of tliis growth in dollars is due to inflation. you have to apply the inflation factor. In terms of retail salesit's 79 percent, according to the \t cst Texas Chamber of Cora-merce. In other words, only 21 percent of the 10-year increase can be counted as actual volume growth—the rest is inflation since 1960.SO BY applying this innationfactor, we find that the 97 percent increase in our county’s dollar amount of retail sales translates to an actual volume increase of 20 4 pqivent.This is an increase of two percent per year in retail sales volume. 1 personally wouldn’t con sider this anything to be overjoyed about—except that it is twice* as much growth in retail sales a. ihe Texas Panhandle as a whollt; * experienced during the decade It's my opinion that Dimmiit s retail businesses have not been getting their reasonable share of the money that's moving around heiv.BANK DEPOSITSHere's good news: From 1960to 1970 bank deposits in Castro county increased by a whopping 135 percent - from $7,017,000 in 1960 to $16,478,000 in 1970.Here again, you have to apply (.Continued on Pnge g) ^
Newspaper Details
Dimmitt Castro County News
Dimmitt, Texas, US
Thu, Feb 18, 1971
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USA 19 Jul 2023
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Dimmitt Castro County News
