1. Planning and Searching

The Blalock Mexico Colonists shared a dream that led them to Mexico to live on the Hacienda El Chamal. They were willing to work tirelessly and cooperatively to achieve their goal of a productive homestead, plenty of food for their families, financial prosperity and a community of like-minded individuals among whom they could live. They had risked much in this pursuit, but Mexico possessed resources that offered them a reasonable chance of improving their condition in life.

George E. Blalock had worked hard on this enterprise. He had shared his idea with friends and acquaintances. He had provided leadership and vision, and he had found the most fertile agricultural land imaginable. Now at seventy years of age Mr. Blalock, found himself working on a task that invoked recollections of events that had transpired over the past twenty-four years. He remembered as if it were yesterday, his first inspection of El Chamal as he wrote:

Upon my first view of the valley in 1902 in company with the agent of the Banco Hipotecario, I was so impressed by the beauty of the scene before me, by the luxuriance of the foliage and the apparent richness of the land that I exclaimed within myself, "She's sold." The five days which I spent on the ground did not weaken this impression, but served rather to strengthen it and to convince me that Chamal was just what we wanted.[1]

Mr. Blalock was writing an affidavit required for submission to the Special Mexican Claims Commission. He continued, "(I)...was born in Barnesville, Georgia, U. S. A. on March 24, 1855, of American parents, and I am an American citizen by birth." His grandparents had come to America from the British Isles, but he, a second generation American, had been born in the same place as his parents.

As a child he moved with his parents to Queen City in Cass County, Texas. He lived there with them until he was twenty. In 1875, he moved to Logan County, Arkansas, where he married and began a family.[2] Later they moved to Paris, Texas. In 1890, he moved to Greer County, Texas,[3] which became part of Oklahoma Territory in 1897.[4]

Mr. Blalock owned and operated a mercantile store and also established his family residency in the town of Navajoe in Greer County. In 1900, he was elected Sheriff of Greer County on the populist ticket with 71% of the vote,[5] and moved his family to Mangum,[6] the county seat.