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When A.P. "Ace" Borger came from Oklahoma to the Texas Panhandle's high plains in 1926, he saw what others had seen: a barren landscape, populated sparsely, with cattle and wildlife. However, through the experienced eyes of a town builder, Ace envisioned a booming, growing, all-American city. They laughed when he bought 240 acres thinking the attraction of black gold would bring enough people to make a profit. Borger was a true boomtown with all the appendages--fugitives, drug dealers, gaming houses, dance halls, prostitutes . . . Read more

Ron White was born December 18, 1956 in Fritch, Texas. He grew up there while his dad worked at the local oil refinery. Here, Ron brings his unique brand of humor to the page. For both hard-core “Tater” fans and first timers, this is Ron White at his very best. Ron White, the man known by fans (and law enforcement officials) as “Tater Salad,” comes a collection of his greatest hits and bits from his onstage shows, as well as some of  the more “interesting” stories from his life before comedy, while on the road, in the spotlight and out of his mind . . . Read more

On a late November morning in 1864, Col. Kit Carson and his U.S. troops, under orders from the commander of the New Mexico Military Department, attacked Kiowa Chief Dohasan’s winter village in the Texas Panhandle. Warriors retaliated with stiff resistance as their women and children escaped. Fighting proceeded down the Canadian River to the abandoned trading post of Adobe Walls ... Carson’s involvement at the First Battle of Adobe Walls has been overlooked. Beginning his research in the 1990s, Alvin Lynn set out to fill that void when he located and walked the 200-mile-long wagon road from Fort Bascom to Adobe Walls and collected 1,800 metal artifacts from 15 historic camps . . . Read more

In The Secret Path of Destiny, a young, disabled, German-American girl, named Isolde, and her destitute mother reach out for a lifeline being offered by a widower in  Texas. ... Isolde and her mother are heading right into the heart of Comancheria, the homeland of the Comanche. "On November 25, 1864, a few days before the massacre at Sand Creek, Hutchinson County, Texas, saw one of the largest Indian battles ever to take place. The clash happened between the United States Army and five thousand Native . . . Read more Look inside

This is the story of a young man from the Texas Panhandle from a very large family that joined the Army in July 1941 and died in a Japanese POW Camp after the Bataan Death March. " Jeffry, in northeastern Hutchinson County, had a post office from March 1902 to October 1918, after which mail was sent to Adobe Walls. John M. Archer was Leroy's grand father and he was also the first postmaster at Jeffry. The post office was in his house . . . Read more

The Monhollon Homesteaders is a biography of the life of western pioneers Isaiah and Etta Monhollon, who participated in the Oklahoma Land Run, encountered Jesse and Frank James, and raised five children while surviving drought and the Dust Bowl Days. "July 4, 1925 the families moved to Borger, Texas, for the Oil Rush. The first Panhandle oil well was drilled in Borger on May 2, 1921. Land was purchased for a town in 1926, and Borger became a boomtown of 45,000 people. the family lived in a tent until Ray and Isaiah could build a grocery store..." Read more Look inside

"Captain Sterling, newly designated commander of Company D, had been in Borger with several of his men since mid April 1924. That brought the Ranger contingent in Hutchinson County to twenty-one officers. The Rangers developed an innovative field "test" to determine if someone not actually caught red-handed in the commission of a crime needed to go to jail. After the city expended some tax dollars for a paddy wagon, Sterling later recalled  . . . " Read more Look inside

Found Inside: "In late November 1897 the Bugbees managed to reach the Canadian River, and, after finding their remaining cattle, which had again stampeded, they settle near Adobe Walls in Hutchinson County, Texas. There they built a large dugout that was to be their home for several years. If Molly's treasured door was not among the items lost in the Cimarron River, we can assume that it became part of the dugout. Aside from that possible luxury, the shelter had a back wall dug into the earth. Pickets daubed with mud formed the front. The rest was made up of  . . . "  Read more Look Inside

by Virginia Pirtle Malicoat

A woman reflects on her coming of age in the Texas Panhandle oil camp town of Phillips Texas in the 1950's. The discovery of letters and various articles written by and about her ancestors, found in her mother's attic, brought to life her family's history... Eventually settling in the Texas Panhandle during oil exploration led to new challenges for her parents . . . Read more Look inside

The events in this book are true and ongoing. The authors examination of events, facts and documents exposes some others for what they are. He hopes to focus the eye of national media through a large magnifying glass on this small community. Maybe it will help people living there and in other small communities facing similar problems to regain their true integrity and democracy." I was born in Pampa, Texas in May 1945, . When World War II ended, my father returned from the Navy and we moved 28 miles North into a small two bedroom wood frame in Borger" . . . Read more Look inside

Some towns are born casual and calm-like. Borger had a streetwalker for a midwife and an oil boom for a birth announcement. Oil, blood, and money flowed freely when this Texas Panhandle town burst upon the scene in the 1920s like a stampede of rawhide Texas Longhorns hell-bent for water. Author Jerry Sinise, noted Amarillo author and travel writer, interviewed "survivors" of the High Plains boomtown and dug through musty police records and old newspaper files to write this Texas saga . . . Read more Look inside

A twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption.

Found Inside: "The women who toiled in the brothels each paid Herwig $18 a week in tribute, which meant great stacks of cash for racketeering officials. "On Dixon Street over a thousand of these women lived, " wrote John H. White, who represented Hutchinson County in the state legislature. "Many of these women supported their husbands by their sinful occupation, who did not seem to mind in the least, just as long as they did not need to work . . .  " Read more Look inside

Hutchinson County, Texas: A Pictorial Legacy is a compilation of historical information, beautiful pictures and colorful memories that take the reader on a fascinating journey into this Texas Panhandle county's history. Spanish explorers marched across Hutchinson County in the 1500s, followed by French explorers in the 1700s and early American explorers in the early . . . Read more

Later in the 1840s, Bent, St. Vrain and Company, one of the great trading firms of the American West, followed Josiah Gregg into the Panhandle while attempting to tap the Comanche-Kiowa trade. The company established many satellite outposts, including Fort Adobe on the Canadian River in present Hutchinson County, Texas . . . Read more Look inside

For more than a century and a half, since they had first moved into the Southwest from the north, the Comanches raided and pillaged and repelled all efforts to encroach on their hunting grounds.

" . . . next day they took off for Adobe Walls, nearby an old trading post built by William Bent's men in the eighteen forties on the South Fork of the Canadian in Hutchinson County, Texas, a center of operations for the encroaching buffalo hunters . . . Read more Look inside

Based on unprecedented access to Ranger archives, Lone Star Lawmen chronicles one hundred years of high adventure as told by one of the nation's most respected Western historians. Found inside: "In March 1926 Oklahoma boomer Asa P. "Ace" Borger and his partner John R. Miller founded the town on the south bank of the river, and within three months it boasted a population of 46,000. To back their quest for wealth and power, they brought in "Two-Gun Dick" Herwig  . . . . " Read more Look inside

by Red Steagal

Red Steagall is West Texas cow country clean to the bone . . .  and proud of it. He couldn't hide it even if he tried. Where he came from is who he is, both as a man and as an artist.

Found Inside: By the time he turned three, the redheaded kid had moved west with his family to the little town of Sanford, in Hutchinson County, just a wide-spot in the road in the northern extreme of the Texas Panhandle. He grew up there, and it would forever be home for him in his heart . . . Read more Look inside

Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters

George Bent, the son of William Bent, one of the founders of Bent's Fort on the Arkansas near present La Junta, Colorado, and Owl Woman, a Cheyenne, began exchanging letters in 1905 with George E. Hyde concerning life at the fort, his experiences with his Cheyenne kinsmen, and the events which finally led to the military suppression of the Indians on the southern Great Plains. "The Kiowas, Comanches, and Prairie Apaches into winter camp on the the South Canadian, , near the mouth of a stream known as Kit Carson Creek, in Hutchinson County, Texas . . . " Read more Look inside

In the spring of 1874 a handful of men and one women set out for the Texas Panhandle to seek their fortunes in the great buffalo hunt. Moving south to follow the herds, they intended to establish a trading post to serve the hunter, or “hide men.” At a place called Adobe Walls they dug blocks from the sod and built their center of operations . . . Read more Look inside

by Frieda Lanham Pickett with contributions from people who grew up in Borger in 1950 - 60s.

"In 2006 in preparation for my high school graduating class's 45th reunion I completed a booklet to be sold at the reunion of the history of the town as written by the wife of one of my father's brothers, memories provided by a Borger Blog managed by Susan Parker Miller . . . Read more Look inside

...Brothels, bordellos and slums overran sleepy towns, and thick, black oil spilled over once-green pastures. While dreams came true for a precious few, most settled for high-risk, dangerous jobs in the oilfields and passed what spare time they had in the vice districts fueled by crude. From the violent shanties of Desdemona and Mexia to Borger and beyond . . . Read more Look inside

by Leslie Monden  from Stinnett Texas

After a year at Allison, Joe was hired, once again, in the dual position of coach and high school principal at Plemons, Texas. That was in the fall of 1940, and he would stay there until the spring of 1942, when World War II was going strong. . . . Read more

This landmark work explores the vibrant world of football from the 1920s through the 1950s, a period in which the game became deeply embedded in American life. "in 1939 and 1940, and in Stinnett, Texas, in 1947 Frankie Groves, a pretty 16-year-old girl succeeded in getting into Stinnett High's season ending game with archrival Groom and onto the nation's sports pages for doing so" . . . Read more Look Inside

The Lost Postcard Photographs of the Texas High Plains

By the mid—1930s Phillips, Texas, was a progressive town of several thousand people—more than the entire population of other counties. It was also a “company town”: the housing, the jobs, and most of the real estate were owned by Phillips . . . Read more Look inside

Storyteller Loren G. Kelly recounts a poetic historical epic of his wildcatter grandfather, roughneck father and nomad-like oil field Irish Kelly ancestors, traveling to oil boom towns, exploring for black gold and drilling oil well gushers in the oil fields of America’s early twentieth century. The author depicts growing up in the oil refinery town of Phillips, Texas, on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle . . .Read more Look inside

Legends from the Texas Panhandle/Plains Region

"Soon the school was everything in Phillips, Texas. Phillips, the school, became a legend from the standpoint that they got whatever they wanted. The little school was classified 2AA, but it had three choirs, a 120-piece marching band, which would be decked out in the Phillips 66 colors, black and orange. Phillips was good at everything and took pride in that issue. In 1939, they had six trophies at the school but in 1975 they had over 600 . . . Read more Look inside

Jason Spearman, a lonesome cowboy from Isom, Texas, wants only to dodge entanglements and get on down the road. Frequently in trouble with the bottle, out of touch with the people around him, and haunted by idyllic memories of the Texas of his youth, Jason seeks distance from trouble only to find himself wandering through seemingly magical places where he meets unusual and unforgettable characters , , ,  Read more

by Elaine Standish

A serial killer stalks women in the Panhandle of Texas. After her father's death is ruled suicide, Anna Marie Stevenson strives to unmask the murderer. This is the first in a series with Anna Marie and her friend Tommy seeking to solve mysteries.

About the author: Elaine Standish grew up on a ranch in Hutchinson County and went to school in Stinnett, Texas. The story is fictitious and though the main landmarks remain, the remainder of the town has changed . . . Read more Look inside

by Ralph Henson

Ralph Henson was born in Memphis, Texas in 1936. He graduated from Borger High School in 1955. This short book on holidays gives some of the feelings and possible reactions to the "politically correct" sayings we hear now. It talks about how some holidays are overshadowed by the preparation of another. It gives some feelings about not being able to talk about, not even mentioning the reason for a holiday. Are you offended by somebody saying they are offended by the standard remarks or displays associated with a holiday? ... Read more Look inside

Resources:

West Texas History & Memories

Early Life in Texas County by County

Books about Texas People and Places

Amazing People from Texas County by County