The Snyder Community was a short-lived, planned, rural settlement located five miles south and one mile west of Plainview, Texas. Peter B Snyder, from Alpha, Minnesota, but born in Illinois, was its primary promoter. Snyder was a Mennonite minister and farmer, who had been searching for low-priced farmland to meet the demand created by expanding Mennonite farming communities across the Midwest. Low prices in Texas, promoted by the advertisements of land agents caught Peter's attention.

On February 5, 1907, Peter and Ida, their eight children, and Peter's parents, John R. and Elizabeth, left Alpha on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway bound for Plainview, Texas. They took along all their household furnishings, a few milk cows and three or four horses. After a three-day journey they arrived at their new home.

They lived in tents while their two-story frame house was built on the homestead Peter bought the year before. They also built a one-room, frame schoolhouse, called Snyder School that served as both church and community social center. Peter's daughter, Maude, was the school's first teacher. Although most of the farmland was not irrigated, Peter built an irrigation system supplied by a large pond and a well, enabling him to grow peaches, watermelons and strawberries among other cash crops.

Other pioneers, Mennonite and non-Mennonite, joined the Snyder colony, from scattered communities across the Midwest, eventually totaling twenty-seven families. But the community did not last. By 1921 the discouraged settlers began selling out and moving to more established communities. Only one family stayed. Poor crops, dust storms, prairie fires, insect invasions, hailstorms, and the severe droughts of 1915 and 1916 disheartened them. The pioneering farmers also discovered their sons did not share their enthusiasm for farming which had driven the westward expansion since the 1736 arrival of John Schneider. The community disbanded by 1925.

Peter and Ida moved to Hesston, Kansas in 1921. Peter's mother, Elizabeth, died in 1928 and was buried at Eastlawn Cemetery near Hesston. Peter's father, John R., had died in 1920 and was buried in the Plainview, Texas municipal cemetery. Peter's six sons went their separate ways. Two settled in Ohio-Orville at Orrville, and John at Wadsworth. Joe lived in California and Michigan, Paul moved near his wife's home in Kalona, Iowa, Mark settled in La Junta, Colorado, and Vernon took up farming near Ashley, Michigan. Susie's husband farmed near Goshen, Indiana, and Grace's husband farmed at St. Johns, Michigan.

The 185-year tradition of farming American soil came to an abrupt halt for the Snyders in 1921. Then it took a detour as John, Susie, Vernon and Grace tried to make farming pay for one more generation. In addition to farming, Orville's son, Harold, worked at an agricultural esearch center the last fifteen years of his life. He likely deserves the honor of being the last Snyder farmer in the Peter B. lineage, unless there are some "gentlemen farmers" continuing a rural existence while working other jobs.

As a tribute to the Mennonite colonists who first broke the virgin prairie in Plainview, Texas, the Hale County Historical Commission placed a historical marker at the site of the former Snyder School on April 22, 1978. The tribute recognizes these pioneers, banded together by a common faith, who endured many hardships, and left a cultural and religious influence upon the place which still bears the name, Snyder Community. The Snyder School is located on FM 400 road about five miles south of Plainview and two miles east of where the community had sprung up in 1906. Peter's two-story house still stands on the south side of the road four or five miles south of town, easily visible from a distance. In recent years, modern irrigation has created a luxurious stand of corn on Peter's former land, which he could only have dreamed of ninety years ago.

The Hale County Historical Society printed the following tribute to this community in their quarterly publication, Hale County History, in 1977:

"Within the first four or five years after the Mennonite Colony was founded, the rapid influx of several Mennonite families stands as a testimony to the influence of Peter B. Snyder and the zeal and dogged determination of a few of the migratory group who kept the settlement alive and growing. Some, discouraged by early hardships, gave up after a few years and returned to their homelands. In some cases, their grown sons and daughters remained, intermarried within the colony and became part of the permanent community. However long their tenure, these fourteen or fifteen families made vital contributions to Hale County History."

And, finally, here is a listing of the early settlers of the Snyder Colony: Mr and Mrs. Jonas M. Kreider, Joseph E. Hartzler, Andrew and Elizabeth (Durr) Brenneman, Emanuel M. and Mattie (Blosser) Hartman, Joel S. and Lena Guengerich, (m.2 to Edna Fisher), James J. Groff, Milton H. and Barbara Near, B.E. Martin, John Hartzler, Peter Camp, Ferdinand and Amanda (Hartman) Rastetter, Charles Hamilton, Perry Smith, John R. and Elizabeth (Bally) Snyder, Peter B. and Ida (Grabill) Snyder, Jonas D. and Ida (Webber) Yoder, E.R. Shelley, and Arie and Gertrude M. (Bucy) Van Howeling. Non-Mennonite settlers between the years, 1910 and 1924, were: John H. and Caroline (Alverson) Buntin, George and Fannie Landis, John P.and Elsie (Hoxie) McGarr, William Ira and Lydia Clemintine (Springer) Johnson, R.L. and Telitha Eugenia (Griffeth) Wilson, Ben M. and Creola (McAnelly) Harris, Henry J. Ellis, O.C. McClain and Samuel Wiley and Emma (Columbia) Karrh.