McCamey -- US 385 1 Mile N of McCamey TX - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

The small Upton County town of McCamey was born in the Permian Basin oil boom. In 2016, it's wide streets are quiet, but the WPA writers have preserved colorful vignettes of a wild Texas oil boomtown.

The waymark coordinates are for the historic marker on the US 385 north of town.

From Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State:

"McCAMEY, 118 m. (2,241 alt., 3,446 pop.), has the appearance of a prosperous carnival, with its tiny frame business houses ringed about by oil derricks and red storage tanks.

When the No. I Baker well blew in on November 16, 1925, McCamey came into almost instant being. Dawn of the next day found grader cutting streets through the mesquite and greasewood flats, following the lines of the hurrying surveyors just ahead, who were laying out the town site. On November 18 the first lot was sold with the stipulation that a building was to be started within one hour. The buyer had carpenters at work within 30 minutes on a filling station and cafe.

Other buildings were erected in mad haste. People poured in, and above the roads hung an ever-present cloud of choking white alkali dust. Trucks lumbered in with drilling supplies, foodstuffs and furnishings. The town overflowed itself; tents bloomed white wherever on untenanted land their owners chose to set them up. The population reached 10,000 within a short time, and still they came. Prices went sky-high. Water sold at a dollar a barrel and was hard to get at that.

On the fringe of the town, in tents and shacks, the hangers-on of every new oil field plied their outlaw trades. One Ranger represented the law in McCamey. Troublemakers found themselves introduced to a new form of confinement. There was no jail, so the Ranger chained his prisoners to a stout post. The story is told that several husky roughnecks, chained to the picket line, as it was called, pulled up the post and dragged it after them to the nearest saloon.

In April, 1936, McCamey was the scene of the world's first recorded Rattlesnake Derby, with a huge crowd in attendance. It was held in correct racing form with a starter, a timekeeper, an official physician (for the handlers, not for the rattlesnakes), an announcer and a staff of judges. Thousands came to see Slicker, Esmeralda, Drain Pipe, Wonder Boy, Air Flow, and May Westian Rosie compete for the $200 purse.

The gallery watched wide-eyed as the handlers drew the reptiles from their containers, tagged them and placed them in the starting box. A forty-five roared, and the starting box fell apart, revealing a mass of squirming, rattling reptiles, which seethed and heaved for a moment. Then out of the mass slithered thick bodies with ugly flat heads, and, while cameras clicked, snakes moved toward the finish line. Slicker won.

So successful was the derby in attracting visitors and advertising the town that it is now an annual event, held the fourth week in April."

Book: Texas Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 545 Year Originally Published: 1940

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