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Masterson is an unincorporated community in southern Moore County, Texas, United States. It lies along the concurrent U.S. Routes 87 and 287, south of the city of Dumas, the county seat of Moore County. Its elevation is 3,704 feet (1,129 m). Although Masterson is unincorporated, it has a post office, with a ZIP code of 79058.
Masterson was founded in 1927 as a support community for Canadian River Gas plant and gas pipeline, together comprising the Panhandle Field. Masterson was named for Robert Masterson who worked at the plant, which was itself named Bivins Compressor station after Lee Bivins, another Panhandle rancher. The community eventually included 32 company houses for families and a hotel for single men. The Bivins Elementary School was built in 1937 and educated children through the eighth grade, after which they attended school in Dumas, Texas. Starting in 1943, helium was extracted from the gas at the Exell Helium Plant, which is located nearby and managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The government built 75 houses for employee families. The Masterson post office was established in 1950 and was located in the Exell Store, built in 1948. The compressor station was sold to Colorado Interstate Gas (CIG) Company in 1951. CIG was acquired by the Coastal Corporation in 1973, which then merged with El Paso Corp. in 1999, which was bought by Kinder Morgan in 2011. Starting in 1963, the housing at both the Bivins and the Exell camps was phased out. The Bivins school was closed in 1978. The station was bought by Pioneer Natural Resources in 2002.
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