Eastland County, Texas History

Eastland County (E-15) is in Central Texas, bordered on the east by Erath County, on the north by Stephens and Palo Pinto counties, on the west by Callahan County, and on the south by Brown and Comanche counties. The county's center is at 32°20' north latitude and 98°50' west longitude. The county was named for Capt. William Mosby Eastland,^qv a member of the Mier Expedition^qv and a victim of the Black Bean Episode.^qv Eastland County covers about 952 square miles of the West Cross Timbers region of Texas; its hilly, rolling terrain ranges from 1200 to 1800 feet above sea level. Eastland, the county seat, is located on Interstate Highway 20 in the north central part of the county, some ninety-five miles west of Fort Worth and fifty-five miles east of Abilene. Most of the county is drained by the Leon River and its tributaries, though other parts drain into Battle Creek and Sandy Creek in the northwest, Palo Pinto Creek in the northeast, the Sabana River in the south, and tributaries of the Colorado River in the southwest. Soils vary from sandy to loamy. Trees found in the county include post oak, shin oak, walnut, pecan, cedar, and ash. The average annual rainfall is 27.09 inches, and the average temperature ranges from 32° F in winter to 96° in summer. The growing season averages 229 days.

Comanche, Kiowa, and other plains Indians visited the area now known as Eastland County in the years before white settlement, though the region was too heavily wooded for the extensive migration of buffalo^qv into the area. The area was part of the Department of Bexar during Mexican Texas.^qv In 1822, much of it became a part of Robertson's colony,^qv and in 1831 the area was part of the empresarial grant from Mexico to Stephen F. Austin and Samuel May Williams.^qqv Part of the area was included in the Peters colony^qv during the republic era.

The first Anglo presence in the region cannot be positively documented, but in 1837 W. A. A. (Big Foot) Wallace^qv might have entered what later became Eastland County with a surveying expedition. Among the first settlers in the county was Frank Sánchez, a Mexican American who arrived in the area in the 1850s. By 1858 residents included the families of John Flannegan (or Flannagan) from Kentucky, W. H. Mansker from Arkansas, W. C. McGough and James Ellison from Georgia, J. M. Ellison from Texas, and the Gilbert boys from Alabama. That year the Texas legislature formed Eastland County from land formerly assigned to Bosque, Coryell, and Travis counties; the county was attached to Palo Pinto County for judicial purposes.

McGough Springs, the first community in the county, was established before the Civil War;^qv another, Mansker Lake (later named Alameda), was founded around 1859. Blair's Fort was built by C. C. Blair about 1860 and used for protection against Indian raids. In 1860, the census counted ninety-nine people living in the county, and the area's agricultural economy had only begun to develop. While the agricultural census enumerated 330 sheep, 1,075 milk cows, and almost 2,550 other cattle in the county that year, "improved" land comprised only 650 acres. Settlers were growing small plots of corn, beans, and sweet potatoes.

Due in part to its isolation from other settled areas and frequent trouble from raiding Indians, the county remained sparsely settled until the 1870s. Conflict between settlers and Kiowa and Comanche Indians became serious enough during the 1860s that a company of minutemen was organized to guard the frontier; the largest fight occurred at Ellison Springs in August 1864. Due to the dangers of settlement in the area, the county's population actually declined during the 1860s; in 1870 the census found only seventy-seven people living in Eastland County. Agriculture had also declined since the beginning of the Civil War. There were only five farms in the county in 1870, all of them smaller than twenty acres in size; only sixteen acres of improved land existed in the entire county.

When Indian raids ceased to present a problem in the early 1870s, however, settlers moved into the area in increasingly larger numbers. In early 1874 the Flannagan's Ranch headquarters, also called Merriman, was designated as the county seat. Through the efforts of Charles U. Connellee^qv and other promoters, an election was held in 1875, and the new town of Eastland was designated the county seat. By 1880 there were 549 farms in the county encompassing about 100,800 acres of land, including 23,423 improved acres. Corn was planted on 5,867 acres that year, and cotton on 3,264. Meanwhile, cattle ranching was also becoming important to the local economy. In 1870, the agricultural census reported only sixteen cattle in the county; by 1880 there were 23,423 counted in the area. And the county's rising population reflected the area's economic development: by 1880, 4,855 people were living in Eastland County.

By 1881 the Texas and Pacific and the Texas Central railroads had reached the county. A new town was organized at the intersection of the two railways when residents of Red Gap, a mile away, moved and renamed their town Cisco. An intense rivalry grew between Eastland and Cisco, and in August 1881 a second county-seat election took place; Eastland won by 354 to 324.

The railroads encouraged immigration and helped to open the area to commercial farming and trade. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century the number of farms in Eastland County increased from 549 to 2,510, and numerous settlements were established, among them Ranger, Rising Star, Ellison Springs, Pioneer, Red Gap, Rustler, Howard, Jewell, New Hope, Tiffin, Chaney, Delmar, Morton Valley, Okra, Olden, Staff, Romney, Nimrod, Carbon, Scranton, Kokomo, Mangum, and Shin Oak Springs. These new towns helped to diversify the local economy and provided opportunities for a variety of professions: dry goods stores, livery stables, saddleries, boardinghouses, drugstores, real estate agencies, and one nursery were advertising in local newspapers by 1890. The population of the county more than tripled between 1880 and 1900, rising to 17,971 by the turn of the century.

Agricultural development in the county continued almost uninterrupted into the teens, and much of the county's growth during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can be attributed to a boom in cotton production during this period. Land devoted to cotton steadily increased from 3,264 acres in 1880 to 15,348 in 1890 and 57,305 in 1900. By 1910 cotton was raised on 87,441 acres in Eastland County, and by that year the number of farms in the area had increased to 2,981. Probably as a result of a boll weevil^qv infestation that hit the county at about this time, however, cotton production dropped off abruptly sometime between 1910 and 1916, thus crippling the local agricultural economy. By 1916 only 6,265 bales of cotton were ginned in the county, and by 1920, the fiber was grown on only 23,600 acres. Total farm acres in the county dropped from 420,137 in 1910 to only 279,405 in 1920; meanwhile, the number of farms in the area decreased to 1,499.

In 1917, just as the cotton boom was disappearing, a major discovery of oil occurred at Ranger, on land leased from the Texas and Pacific Coal and Oil Company by William K. Gordon.^qv The discovery touched off a spectacular oil boom that lasted into the 1920s. The county produced twenty-two million barrels in 1919, the peak year. Thousands of expectant workers and investors flocked into the county, among them George L. (Tex) Rickard,^qv the boxing promoter, Jess Willard, the heavyweight champion, and novelist Rex Beach, who set his novel Flowing Gold in Ranger. For a time conditions were chaotic as new arrivals threw up shacks and tents faster than community services could handle them. Population figures reflected the boom: in 1910, 23,421 people lived in the county, but by 1920 the census reported 58,508 residents, placing Eastland County in tenth place among Texas counties. The oil boom also had the effect of encouraging railroads to build into the area. Earnings of the Texas and Pacific grew from $94,000 to $2,350,000 in 1918 and 1919. Circus man John Ringling built the Eastland, Wichita Falls and Gulf Railroad from Mangum to Breckwalker, while Ardmore, Oklahoma, promoter Jake L. Hamon^qv extended his Wichita Falls, Ranger and Fort Worth to compete for the Ranger trade (see also RANGER, DESDEMONA, AND BRECKENRIDGE OILFIELDS).

The boom faltered after oil production tapered off after 1922, but fortunately the agricultural sector began to recover at about that same time, driven in part by an increase in cattle production and a brief and limited resurgence of cotton production during the early 1920s. The number of cattle in the county almost doubled (from 11,085 to 20,174) between 1920 and 1930, and cotton production increased to 7,195 bales in 1926. By 1925 the number of farms and ranches in the county had increased to 2,012, more than 25 percent more than the number for 1910. By 1929, however, the figure had dropped to 1,990. County population figures for the time reflect the decline of the oil boom and declining number of farms. By 1930, only 34,156 people lived in Eastland County.

Many residents of the county suffered during the Great Depression^qv of the 1930s, and though the number of farms in the area actually increased to 2,332 by the end of the decade, the population of the county decreased during the same period, to 30,345 in 1940. Cotton production almost ceased entirely during the 1930s, and by 1940 occupied only 2,111 acres in the county.

From the 1940s to the 1970s the mechanization of agriculture combined with other factors to continue depopulating the county. County population dropped to 23,942 in 1950, to 19,526 in 1960, and to 18,092 in 1970. It rose slightly during the 1970s to reach 19,480 in 1980, then declined to 18,488 people in 1990 and 18,297 in 2000.

Though the county's petroleum industry has never returned to the levels of production of the boom years of the 1920s, oil has continued to be important to the area's economy. The county produced more than 985,000 barrels of crude in 1938, 728,218 in 1944, 865,979 in 1956, 631,969 in 1960, 880,731 in 1978, 2,487,169 in 1982, and 1,106,053 in 1990. By January 1991, 149,206,256 barrels had been taken from county lands since 1917.

Much of the present economy of Eastland County is centered around agriculture. In the 1980s the county had 498,000 of its 609,000 acres in farms and ranches; of this some 17,000 acres was irrigated. Cattle ranching was the most important sector of the economy, however; in 1982 about 52,000 cattle were reported in the county. That year the county also reported 3,925 hogs, 3,452 goats, and 1,575 sheep. In 1982 Eastland County ranked fifth in the state for the production of peanuts, with 29,533,617 pounds reported, or 8 percent of the total state production. That year the county produced 103,016 bushels of sorghum and 72,135 bushels of wheat; 102,848 bushels of pecans and 13,473 bushels of peaches were also reported. In 1982, 1,597 businesses were reported in the county, employing about 5,000 people for annual wages of $65 million. The most important of these were agribusinesses, petroleum industries, and manufacture of steel tanks, clothing, portable buildings, and oilfield equipment.

Politically, Eastland County has had a mixed history. Until the 1950s, county voters supported the Democratic party^qv except during the 1890s, when People's party^qv candidates won locally. During the 1950s the county began consistently to support Republican candidates for president; in statewide races for governor and United States senator, however, the Democrats almost always won except in 1986, when Republicans carried the county in the gubernatorial race, and in 1972 and 1984, when Republican candidates for senator won.

The county is well situated near the metropolitan areas of Dallas and Fort Worth and served by major highways, including Interstate 20 from east to west and U.S. 183 from north to south. State highways 6, 16, 36, 69, and 206 also pass though Eastland County along with a network of farm-to-market and county roads. Communities in the county include Eastland, Cisco, Ranger, Gorman, Rising Star, and Carbon.

Eastland County has a number of cultural assets, including Cisco Junior College* and Ranger Junior College. It also has several lakes and smaller reservoirs, including lakes Leon and Cisco, which offer recreational opportunities. The Eastland County Fair and parade are held each October, and there is a permanent religious diorama and an annual Easter pageant at the Kendrick Religious Amphitheater, between Cisco and Eastland.

The story of "Old Rip" helped to draw attention to the county during the 1920s. Old Rip was a horned lizard,^qv placed in the cornerstone of the old Eastland County courthouse in 1897, that supposedly emerged alive when the block was reopened in 1928. The toad became something of a national sensation, toured many U.S. cities, and received a formal audience with President Calvin Coolidge; he eventually returned home and died of pneumonia. Old Rip is now on display in a glass and marble case at the Eastland County Courthouse.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Edwin T. Cox, History of Eastland County, Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1950). Ruby Pearl Ghormley, Eastland County, Texas: A Historical and Biographical Survey (Austin: Rupegy, 1969). The History of Eastland County, 1873-1973. Carolyne Lavinia Langston, History of Eastland County (Dallas: Aldridge, 1904).

John Leffler

Carbon, on State Highway 6 in central Eastland County, derives its name from the mineral deposits in the area. In 1881 N. S. Hayes (or Haynes) bought the first lot on the present townsite and built a store. He became the first postmaster when a post office was granted in 1882. Carbon was considered one of the six principal towns in Eastland County in 1889; it vied to become county seat in 1897 but came in third. By 1904 Carbon had a gin, a lumberyard, a school, a bank, several churches, a Masonic lodge, and 600 residents. The Carbon Herald, which carried all important county court news, was called "the local paper for Eastland County." Carbon was among nine towns in Eastland County with independent school districts in 1924 and 1942. Its population fell to 281 by 1980, when the town retained a post office and two businesses. In 1990 the population was 255.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edwin T. Cox, History of Eastland County, Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1950). Ruby Pearl Ghormley, Eastland County, Texas: A Historical and Biographical Survey (Austin: Rupegy, 1969).

Cisco, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and Interstate Highway 20, in northwestern Eastland County, traces its history back to 1878 or 1879, when Rev. C. G. Stevens arrived in the area, established a post office and a church, and called the frontier settlement Red Gap. About six families were already living nearby, and W. T. Caldwell was running a store a half mile to the west. In 1881 the Houston and Texas Central Railway crossed the Texas and Pacific, which had come through the year before, at a point near Red Gap, and the settlement's inhabitants moved their town to the crossing. Three years later the town was officially recognized and a new post office granted; the town's name was changed to Cisco for John A. Cisco, a New York financier largely responsible for the building of the Houston and Texas Central.

Railroads continued to influence the development of Cisco as the Texas and Pacific acquired lots in the town and sold them to immigrants attracted by brochures touting the town as the "Gate City of the West" and promising half fares and generous baggage service for all settlers. Once settlers arrived, agricultural agents employed by the railroad advised them what and when to plant and on occasion provided the seed. During the 1880s a Mrs. Haws built and managed the first hotel, and Mrs. J. D. Alexander brought the first "millinery and fancy goods" to town. Following a practice common at the time, religious groups in Cisco met together for prayer meetings in the schoolhouse until they could build separate churches. By 1892 Cisco was a growing community with two newspapers, a bank, and an economy based on trade, ranching, fruit farming, and the limestone, coal, and iron ore available nearby. A broom factory and roller corn and flour mills were among the town's fifty-six businesses. But in 1893 a tornado hit Cisco, killing twenty-eight people and destroying or damaging most of its homes and businesses. Sources note that Mayor Conner of Dallas impressed fifty blacks to help clean up the wreckage in Cisco, and that among those whose businesses were affected was a Chinese laundryman.

Although Cisco played a relatively minor role in the Eastland County oil boom of 1919-21, its population grew rapidly at the time, with some estimates as high as 15,000; in the wake of the boom Cisco adopted a city charter and built a new railroad station that cost $25,000. Cisco was also in the background of a heated controversy between the Ku Klux Klan^qv and its opponents that swept the county in the early 1920s (see RANGER, TEXAS). A Klan newsletter noted that Klan and anti-Klan forces had agreed to cease hostilities at Cisco, a fact that suggests a certain level of Klan activity in the town.

Probably the best-known event in Cisco history was the Santa Claus Bank Robbery.^qv It occurred two days before Christmas of 1927, when four men robbed the First National Bank, taking $12,000 in cash and $150,000 in nonnegotiable securities. A chain of exciting events-including an attempt to steal a car foiled by a quick-thinking fourteen-year-old and a gun battle in which three people were killed, seven were injured, and two young girls were kidnapped-accounts for the many, often melodramatic, stories written about the robbery. One of the bandits eventually died of gunshot wounds, one served a prison sentence and was released, one died in the electric chair, and the last was lynched after shooting a jailer while trying to escape.

In the years following World War II,^qv Cisco became increasingly dependent on oil and gas production, agriculture (primarily peanut cultureqv), and manufacturing. Cisco Junior College* grew and was enrolling around 1,000 students in the early 1980s. In 1980 Cisco had a population of 4,517 and 154 businesses. That year residents applied to have the whole town named a historical district. They were inspired to seek recognition by a University of Houston professor who had come to Cisco to supervise the restoration of the Mobley Hotel, the first hotel owned by hotel magnate Conrad Hilton.^qv In 1990 the population of Cisco was 3,813.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edwin T. Cox, History of Eastland County, Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1950). Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 12, 21, 1967. Ruby Pearl Ghormley, Eastland County, Texas: A Historical and Biographical Survey (Austin: Rupegy, 1969).

Noel Wiggins

Desdemona, on State Highway 16 in the southeastern corner of Eastland County, is one of the oldest extant Texas settlements west of the Brazos River. Sometime around 1857 a group of settlers built a family fort for protection from the Indians on land owned by C. C. Blair. In 1873 the oldest organization of any kind in Eastland County, the Rockdale Baptist Church, was built nearby. Two years later William and Ben Funderburg acquired the old Fort Blair land, and a town began to develop. By 1877 the town had a post office, and although it was officially named Desdemona for the daughter of the town justice of the peace, for many years it was known as Hogtown for its location on Hog Creek. Some early sources refer to it as Desdemonia or Desdimonia. The main sources of revenue in early Desdemona were trade and agriculture, primarily peanut farming. Economic discontent in the early twentieth century spurred the growth of socialism, but political competition never grew more violent than a yearly picnic and baseball game pitting Socialists against Democrats. By 1892 the town was reported to have a population of 100, and by 1904 it had grown to 340.

The economic climate of Desdemona changed drastically in September 1918, when Tom Dees, director of the recently formed Hog Creek Oil Company, struck oil on land owned by Joe Duke. The discovery put Desdemona among the growing number of oil boomtowns in Eastland County. With speculators and workers flooding in, tents and shacks sprang up throughout the town, and the population may have reached 16,000 at one time. By 1919 the Desdemona field was probably the second largest in the oil belt, and the Hog Creek Oil Company's stockholders were able to sell their $100 shares for $10,250 each. As torrential rains broke an earlier drought, cases of influenza and typhoid reached epidemic proportions. Oil often overflowed tanks and dirtied streams or floated in clouds, making Desdemona an unpleasant place to live. Growing proportionately to the number of new wells was the number of gambling houses and brothels and violent crimes, and in April 1920 the Texas Rangers^qv had to be called in to keep order. The Ku Klux Klan^qv seems never to have garnered as much support in Desdemona as it did in Ranger, a neighboring boomtown, in the 1920s, but a Klan newsletter's reference to "three Kluckers from Desdemona" suggests that an organization did exist there.

Disappointment was probably not universal when oil production fell from 7,375,825 barrels in 1919 to 2,488,755 barrels in 1921, and an insignificant rise in 1922 suggested that the boom was over. The bust occasioned a decline in Desdemona much sharper than that experienced by other Eastland County boomtowns. In 1936 the city government dissolved itself. The twelve-grade school was closed in 1969. In 1976 ninety wells were still producing oil or gas n the Desdemona field, and a Mobil Oil Company plant was distilling butane. By 1980 Desdemona had an estimated population of 180 and three businesses. The population was still reported as 180 in 1990. See also RANGER, DESDEMONA, AND BRECKENRIDGE OILFIELDS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edwin T. Cox, History of Eastland County, Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1950). Dallas Morning News, May 23, 1976.

Eastland, the county seat of Eastland County, is at the intersection of State highways 6 and 69, northwest of Interstate Highway 80 on the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the central part of the county. In 1875 Jacamiah S. Daugherty and Charles U. Connelleeq^qv purchased land on the C. S. Betts survey and platted a townsite. County voters opted to move the county seat from Merriman to the newly platted site, as it was closer to the center of the county, and the new community was named Eastland. Connellee, Daugherty, J. B. Ammerman, and others built a stone courthouse, and the county commissioners court held its first session in the town in September of 1875. By January of 1876 the population was estimated at 250. The first public school was taught in the community in 1877, and Methodist, Baptist, and Christian churches were soon organized. The city's growth was assured when, in 1880, the Texas and Pacific Railway was given a number of town lots to build through the community. Eastland Independent School District was established in 1882, and a second courthouse of red stone was constructed in 1883. By 1884 Eastland had three churches, a school, a flouring mill, two cotton gins, and an estimated 500 inhabitants. Among the early newspapers in the town were the Anchor and the Chronicle. Eastland was incorporated for the first time on June 6, 1891, with W. Q. Connellee as the first mayor and for the second time on April 6, 1897, with June Kimble as mayor. The second courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1896, and a third courthouse was built the following year. A horned lizard,^qv later to be become famous as "Old Rip," was supposedly placed in the cornerstone. When the third and final courthouse was erected in 1928, the cornerstone was opened, and the toad was found to have miraculously survived. Though many doubted the toad's authenticity, he (and eventually his remains) got quite a bit of state and even national publicity and became an important part of town and county lore. Eastland grew slowly in the first decades of the twentieth century, reaching 596 inhabitants in 1900 and 855 in 1910. By 1914 the community had two banks, telephone service, and a public library. The local economy was heavily dependent on cotton. Eastland County experienced a dramatic oil boom from 1917 to 1922, and the city of Eastland grew rapidly, though not as rapidly as other communities in the county, notably Ranger and Desdemona. Eastland population increased four-fold between 1910 and 1920, reaching 3,368 in 1920, though some estimates claim that there were as many as 10,000 people in the town during the height of the boom in 1919. The town's prosperity in the 1920s helped fund city improvements like the new courthouse, a new high school, and the paving of city streets. The community reached its peak census population in 1930 with 4,648 inhabitants. Thereafter the city began a slow decline, falling to 3,849 inhabitants in 1940, 3,606 in 1950, and 3,178 in 1970. The community experienced some small scale growth in the 1970s, as the number of businesses increased from 78 in 1972 to 154 in 1982, and the population increased to 3,747 in 1980. In 1990 Eastland had a population of 3,690. The local economy depended on county government, agribusiness, printing, and several manufacturing plants.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ruby Pearl Ghormley, Eastland County, Texas: A Historical and Biographical Survey (Austin: Rupegy, 1969). The History of Eastland County, 1873-1973.

Gorman is on State Highway 6 and Farm Road 8 on the southeastern edge of Eastland County. It grew out of the earlier community of Shinoak, which was renamed Gorman for Patrick Gorman, roadmaster of the Texas Central Railroad in 1889, when a new post office was granted. The first store was built by Dick Mason, and the town was incorporated on May 15, 1902, with H. T. (Tom) Hamrick as mayor. By 1904 Gorman had various stores, a hotel, a gin, a lumberyard, a canning factory, electric street lights, and a newspaper named the Gorman Ledger. Hankins College was located in Gorman from 1905 to 1912. During the Eastland County oil boom of 1917-22 Gorman became an important supply center, and its population grew considerably. The Kirk oilfield was also located nearby. Ku Klux Klan^qv influence in Eastland County had waned by 1930, but as late as the 1960s the town remained all white. The first peanut-shelling machine in Texas was used in Gorman in 1940, and in 1986 Gorman had one of the most efficient shelling plants in the United States. Both the Texas Peanut Producers Board and the Southwest Peanut Growers' Association were headquartered in Gorman; the latter ran the western Peanut Price Support Program for the United States Department of Agriculture. Along with this major industry, Gorman had over thirty businesses and 1,226 inhabitants in 1980. In 2000 the population was 1,236.

Olden, on Interstate Highway 20 midway between Ranger and Eastland in northern Eastland County, originated as a railroad town on the Texas and Pacific Railway. It was known as Olden Switch and came to life with expectations of silver discoveries. Silver was not found, but Olden survived to benefit from the county oil boom that began in 1919. In 1945 Olden had 500 residents, but by 1980 the population had fallen to 110, where it remained in 1990.

Ranger, on Interstate Highway 20 between Abilene and Fort Worth in northeastern Eastland County, derived its name from the Texas Rangers,^qv who in the 1870s had a camp in a valley about two miles northeast of Ranger on a prong of Palo Pinto Creek. This camp would have been at the south end of the present Hagaman Lake, earlier the Watson Ranch. By 1879 the beautiful valley housed a tent city with tent churches, schools, hotel, and general store, and was known as Ranger Camp Valley. In 1880 the Texas and Pacific Railway Company laid tracks a couple of miles west of the valley. In August 1880 I. G. Searcy deeded 160 hundred and sixty acres to Texas and Pacific Railway Company. The inhabitants of Ranger Camp Valley moved to the railway and established the permanent town of Ranger. On December 27, 1880, James M. Davis was appointed postmaster of the new Ranger post office. Between 1889 and 1904 Ranger grew from a town of 350 with two doctors to 750 with five doctors, a bank, a high school, and a women's literary club. It had become a trade center for Stephens County, an important wheat-producing area to the north.

As an agricultural center, Ranger was hit hard by the drought of 1917. Inspired by adversity, a few residents encouraged William Knox Gordon,^qv vice president of the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company, to begin testing for oil. The first well drilled, the Nannie Walker No. 1, was somewhat of a disappointment, as it first produced gas and only later blew in oil. But in October 1917 the McClesky¹ No. 1 came in, reached a daily production of 1,700 barrels, and began a mammoth oil boom that drastically changed Ranger and Eastland County. The discovery of oil in Ranger led the oil industry to reappraise Texas as an oil-producing area and allayed fears of a nationwide oil shortage, which had been growing since 1900. In June 1919 the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company, whose stock had skyrocketed from thirty dollars to $1,250 a share, was drilling twenty-two wells in the area. Eight refineries were open or under construction, and the city's four banks had $5 million in deposits. Later in the boom, work was begun on an eight-inch pipeline to carry oil to the Gulf Coast. Although census figures never went higher than the 16,201 recorded in 1920, Ranger may have had 30,000 residents at one time. With the arrival of the Wichita Falls and Southern Railroad, Ranger a second railway line; trains running between Forth Worth and Abilene made five daily stops in Ranger. The city was incorporated in 1919.

Not all the effects of the boom were positive, however. At about the same time that oil began flowing, the drought broke, and torrential rains fell through the fall and winter, turning Main Street into a three-foot bog in which one man reported he saw a mule drown. The rains, coupled with crowded and jerry-built housing, led to an epidemic of typhoid and influenza that killed many. Pictures from the boom days show derricks sprouting up like trees throughout the town. Their proximity meant that residents could never escape the smell of oil. It also meant that when wells came in and caught fire, as they often did, they endangered the whole town. One fire, on April 6, 1919, destroyed nearly two city blocks. The boom also brought with it rapid growth in the number of gambling houses and brothels, and oilfield killings reportedly were common; many people considered Ranger to be a typical oil-boom town.

By 1921, after less than two turbulent years, the boom was spent. Eastland County wells, drilled into black lime, produced remarkably at first, diminished, and stopped after relatively short lives. A number of bank failures in 1921 put a decisive end to the boom, and by the time of the next census in 1930, the population of Ranger had fallen to 6,208. During the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan^qv grew strong in Eastland County, with Ranger as the hub of activity. In the economic unrest after the oil boom spent itself, the Klan, with its anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic bias, claimed that it was formed to defend American values and that its picnics, baseball games, and rallies had attracted thousands. "Kluckers," as they termed themselves, published a newsletter, Ku-Klux in Round, and claimed to be good for business and society. Although its actual membership is unknown, the Klan soon attracted vigorous opposition. An Eastland Good Government Club was formed with a Ranger Club branch. In their declaration of principles the clubs quoted the United States Constitution on freedom and equality and denounced the Klan for boycotting Catholic and minority businesses. The Klan ventured into county politics, but after its defeat in the elections of 1924 it declined rapidly and by the end of the decade had virtually disappeared from the area. Although the town never recovered its former wealth, the postdepression era saw Ranger recover economically, saved by sheep and goat ranching^qv and the cultivation of peanuts, cotton, and sweet potatoes. By the 1960s Ranger had fifteen industries. In the 1970s Eastland County became the second most important county for peanut culture^qv in the state. At the same time Ranger Junior College, founded in 1926, was enrolling about 500 students. In 1980 Ranger had eighty-three businesses, a bank, and a population of 3,142. In 1982 the chamber of commerce established the Roaring Ranger Museum to depict the history of the oil boom and the community. In 1990 Ranger had a population of 2,803. See also RANGER, DESDEMONA, AND BRECKENRIDGE OILFIELDS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abilene Reporter-News, July 22, 1977. Edwin T. Cox, History of Eastland County, Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1950).

Rising Star, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and State Highway 36, fifty-six miles southeast of Abilene in southwestern Eastland County, had its beginnings in 1876 when six families moved west from Gregg County and settled on the site. When the post office opened in 1878 with Hendrick H. Osburn as postmaster, the settlement was called Copperas Creek. In 1879 Tom Anderson bought a tract of land from one of the original settlers, and in 1880, after the old post office had been closed, he opened a post office and general store in his home. D. D. McConnell of Eastland suggested a new name for the town when he said that the area must be a "rising star country" because it produced crops when other areas were barren. In 1889 Rising Star had five businesses and three doctors and by 1904 had added a bank, a hotel, a school, five churches, two newspapers, and dry goods and drug stores. The economy of the area was based on agriculture, primarily the cultivation of corn, cotton, oats, and fruit. The town's prospects were enhanced in 1911 when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad built through from Cross Plains to De Leon. The town's first newspaper was the Rising Star Record, later renamed the Rising Star News and still later the Rising Star X-Ray. The Rising Star Signal was another early newspaper.

Although the first oil found in Eastland County was discovered near Rising Star in 1909, it was not until 1920, close to the end of the Eastland County boom, that a major strike attracted attention to Rising Star. In an attempt to prevent the town from becoming a tent and shanty town, officials issued strict building regulations, but speculators and oilfield workers circumvented them by hastily building a town five miles to the west. In just over a year that town was gone and the boom finished. By the 1960s some oil was still being produced near Rising Star, and pecans and peanuts had replaced cotton as the main crops. The 1980 census found 1,204 people living in Rising Star. The town was incorporated and had a bank, a post office, and twenty-seven businesses. In 1990 the population was 859.