T.P. Tavern - Texas Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The T.P. Tavern was a center of oil-boom-towm life in McCamey, and hosted the Rattlesnake Derby memorialized by the WPA writers of the Texas guidebook, as follows:

""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."

Marker Number: 14304 Marker Text: McCamey residents and visitors remember this site of a well-known nightclub. Co-owners Tom Bargesser and Perry Fitzsimmons used their first initials to name the T.P. Tavern in 1927. The first location near Shell Pipeline road served large crowds during an oil exploration boom. In 1934, the business moved here, accommodating more space and a wooden dance floor. Jim Sloan took over management in 1938, adding distinctive teepee insignia to the building. As part of the West Texas roadhouse circuit, the Tavern hosted regional musicians and many who gained national fame, including Ernest Tubb, Lawrence Welk and Bob Wills. Rattlesnake derbies and boxing matches were also popular before the building burned in 1976. (2008) Marker is Property of the State of Texas

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