Roaring Ranger

When oil demand was high during World War I, Texas Pacific Coal Company General Manager W.K. Gordon, a believer in deep drilling, persuaded his company to make the venture that started Ranger’s oil boom at McClesky No. 1, which blew in during October 1917 as a 1700-barrels-a-day gusher. Later gushers yielded up to 7,000 and 11,000 barrels a day each. Ten daily trains brought in prospectors packed in aisles and on tops of coaches, and Ranger’s dozen or so houses became a city of drillers, suppliers, and oil company offices. Living quarters were so scarce that beds of day-tour men were occupied by graveyard-tour men, and overstuffed chairs were rented for sleeping. Food was hard to get, prices were high, and for two rainy years Ranger was a sea of mud, with a sled taxiing people across streets or a man in hip boots carrying them piggyback. Money was plentiful, however, and vice moved in; after five murders occurred in one day, law officers arrested many criminals and expelled gamblers and vagrants. Ranger’s success overshadowed its troubles, and it was said to have yielded in a year twice the wealth of the best years in the California and Klondike gold fields.

Ranger, Texas · United States