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Borger, Texas 79008
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Boomtown to Hometown
Borger, Texas
| Borger, at the junction of State highways 136, 152 and
207, in south central Hutchinson County, was established by
and named for A. P. (Ace) Borger, who was reputed throughout
Oklahoma and Texas to be a shrewd town promoter. In March
1926, after the discovery of oil in the vicinity, Borger and
his partner, attorney John R. Miller, purchased a 240-acre
town site near the Canadian River in the southern part of
the county. Within ninety days of its founding, sensational
advertising and the lure of "black gold" brought over 45,000
men and women to the new boomtown. In October, the charter
incorporating the city of Borger was adopted, and Miller was
elected mayor. By that time the Panhandle and Santa Fe
Railway had completed a spur line to Borger, a post office
had opened, and a school district had been established. J.
D. (Big Heart) Williams set up the first hamburger stand in
Borger on the three-mile-long Main Street, where a hotel and
a jail had also been erected. Telephone service and
steam-generated electricity were available by the end of
1926. Before wells were drilled, drinking water was provided
in tank wagons. The ranchers, John R. Weatherly and James A.
Whittenburg, hoping to cash in on the boom, established two
rival townsites, Isom and Dixon Creek, next to that of
Borger. Later these were incorporated into the Borger city
limits, as was the oil camp of Signal Hill to the northeast.
In November 1927 a fire destroyed the Dixon Creek Oil
Company refinery, causing more than $60,000 worth of damage.
One noted visitor to Borger during this time was the artist
Thomas Hart Benton, whose painting of boomtown depicts his
impression of Borger's Main Street. Within a matter of
months, oilmen, prospectors, roughnecks, panhandlers,
fortune seekers, card sharks, bootleggers, prostitutes, and
dope peddlers descended on Borger. "Booger Town," as it was
nicknamed, became a refuge for criminals and fugitives from
the law. Before long the town government was firmly in the
hands of an organized crime syndicate led by Mayor Miller's
shady associate, "Two-Gun Dick" Herwig. The center of this
vice was Dixon (now Tenth) Street, notorious for its
brothels, dance halls, gambling dens, slot machines, and
speakeasies. Murder and robbery became commonplace. Illegal
moonshine stills and home breweries flourished with the
blessings of Herwig and his henchmen, including W.J. (Shine)
Popejoy, the king of the Texas bootleggers. Acting on
petitions and investigative reports, in the spring of 1927,
Governor Daniel J. Moody sent a detachment of Texas Rangers,
under Captains Francis Augustus Hamer and Thomas R. Hickman,
to remedy the situation. Although the rangers proved a
stabilizing force and compelled many undesirables to leave
town, Borger's wave of crime and violence continued
intermittently into the 1930s and climaxed with the murder
of District Attorney John A. Holmes by an unknown assassin
on September 18, 1929. This episode prompted Moody to impose
martial law for a month and sent state troops to help local
authorities rid the town of the lawless element. This goal
was eventually achieved, but not before Ace Borger was shot
to death by his longtime enemy Arthur Huey on August 31,
1934. The Great Depression also helped to propel Borger from
one era into another by the late 1930s. Although Phillips
Petroleum and other companies profited from the fields
around Borger, prices in oil and gas dropped, ending the
boom. "Black dusters," augmented by soot from carbon black
plants, turned day into night (dust bowl). "Okie" migrants,
tractored off their foreclosed farms, were sometimes able to
find jobs in the Borger plants and refineries. With the aid
of the Work Projects Administration, streets were improved,
and the boom shacks were replaced with permanent buildings.
During World War II synthetic rubber and other petroleum
products became important in the Borger area. The Hutchinson
County Airport was constructed north of town in 1949. By the
1960s Borger was one of the largest centers for oil, carbon
black (carbon black industry), and petrochemical production
and supplies in the state. In 1969, Borger was designated an
All-American city. The advent of Lake Meredith also added to
the town's economy. The population was listed at 14,000 in
1943, 17,949 in 1950, 20,911 in 1960, 14,195 in 1970, and
15,837 in 1980. By 1980 Borger had 488 businesses, including
several manufacturers. In 1990 the population was 15,675.
Borger remains an important shipping point for agricultural
produce as well as for the petroleum products manufactured
there. The community supports seven schools, fifty churches,
three banks, a radio station, twenty-four city parks, a
library, a hospital, and Frank Phillips College, a junior
college. The city's newspaper, the Borger News-Herald
(formerly the Hutchinson County Herald) has been in business
since 1926. The Hutchinson County Museum, opened in 1977,
houses artifacts of the county's pioneer past. Borger is
especially noted for its scale models of the buildings at
Adobe Walls at the time of the 1874 battle. |
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| BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hutchinson County Historical Commission,
History of Hutchinson County, Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1980).
H. Gordon Frost and John H. Jenkins, "I'm Frank Hamer": The
Life of a Texas Peace Officer (Austin: Pemberton Press,
1968). John H. White, Borger, Texas (1929?; rpt., Waco:
Texian Press, 1973). H. Allen Anderson |
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