Hereford

Hereford calls itself the Beef Capital of the World, and the title is more earned than borrowed: the Deaf Smith County seat sits in the middle of one of the densest feedlot corridors in North America, with more cattle within an hour than people within four. About 14,000 residents live here, southwest of Amarillo on the flat run toward New Mexico, with naturally fluoridated water that gave the town a second nickname, Town Without a Toothache. The economy is cattle, dairy, and the trucking that moves both. For singles, the pool is small, observant, and largely employed by the same handful of operations.