Rankin -- Rankin TX
N 31° 13.577 W 101° 56.236
14R E 220197 N 3458400
Although accurate, the WPA writer's assessment of Rankin for the Texas guidebook still had to sting
Waymark Code: WMV178
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/06/2017
Views: 2
Compared to the colorful portrait of fellow Upton-county town of McCamey in the WPA writers' deadly-accurate assessment of Rankin (the Upton County seat) still echoes with droll descriptive wit in 2016:
"RANKIN, 100 m. (2,495 alt., 935 pop.), a livestock market, is a one-story town."
O-U-C-H!!!
The WPA description of the rest of Upton county isn't much kinder:
"Oil and cattle are the leading interests in the region now traversed. The country is rough, with but little vegetation other than those drab, colorless, stunted growths which exist in this arid, alkaline country."
The next line of the WPA Guide starts the colorful and fun passage about McCamey, with anecdotes of its early boomtown years and a Rattlesnake Derby.
Residents of Rankin, the Upton County seat, must have been less than thrilled with the WPA's dismissal of their town.
That having been said, Rankin is not one of Blasterz favorite places to visit.
And since not much else in and around Rankin has changed since 1940, we must acknowledge that WPA writers summed this place up very well.
Book: Texas
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 545
Year Originally Published: 1940
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