CANYON, Texas (KFDA) – The wind in the Texas Panhandle has been pushing people around for centuries.
But Canyon, Texas has something big enough to put that bully to work.
Long before electricity, that same wind helped shape life on the high plains.
Beginning in the late 1800s, ranchers planted thousands of windmills, not to generate power, but to pump water.
Without them, there would have been no ranches, no farms, and very little reason to settle here.
For generations, folks in the Texas Panhandle have viewed the wind as both friend and foe.
Then, in 2018, just east of Canyon, engineers at West Texas A&M’s wind test facility built the 653-foot GW3S, the tallest wind turbine in the USA.
The same wind that humbled homesteaders bent the trees sideways and carries the scent of Hereford’s feedlots for miles, now powers thousands of homes.
Out here, the wind is relentless.
But the people of Canyon, Texas know how to put it to work.
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