Ranger Exes Memorial-TX - Old Ranger Photos
The Boom Years - Page 1 of 14
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Ranger oil boom was born when the McCleskey 
No. 1 roared in on Oct. 17, 1917. Oil flowed
over the top of the rigging for four weeks  
before it was brought under control.  The 
well produced 1600 barrels of oil a day. 


Ranger became a busy, noisy city when the oil boom came.  The 
streets turned into mud holes that were difficult to maneuver.


During the boom, oil derricks dotted the landscape of Ranger.
The acrid, sour smell of gas was everywhere.                 


Ferry boating the mud in downtown Ranger. Thousands flocked
to Ranger to join the adventurers who continued to swarm in
from every part of the country.                            


Oil derricks in Ranger. Farmers who had barely eaked a living 
out of the sandy dunes on crops of meager peanuts, cotton, and
livestock, found their acres worth thousand of dollars.       


Busy downtown Ranger during the oil boom.  Just 37 years after
the town was formed in 1880, it erupted into a teeming mini-  
metropolis overflowing with people needing a place to live and
merchants a place to do business.                             


Ranger oil fields. The fabulous Ranger Oil Boom was destined
to forever mark the small West Texas town as the site of one
of the miracles of the industrial age.                      


Ranger first street car.  The drivers known as "nickel
schemers" charged 5 cents for a distance of 14 ft.  


Downtown Ranger during the oil boom. Ranger went from a few
hundred people to a city of 30,000.                        


Muddy streets during the oil boom. There had been a 18-month   
drought but in 1918 the rains fell through one fall and winter.