Jayton
Plains Trail Region
Vestiges of this town, once named Jay Flat for an early ranching family, can be seen in the restored elegance of the 1907 bank building now home to the Kent County State Bank. Its authentic teller's windows, Tiffany-style stained glass dome, and recessed porch replete with porch swing hark back to the days when the railroad, the newspaper, and the cotton industry thrived here, and when western writer Zane Grey used a local recreational spring as the setting for his novel The Thundering Herd. Nearby Clairemont, now a poignant ghost town, was abandoned in 1954 when the county seat was moved to Jayton.