Borger Landmarks


     Deahl School House at 601 Coble is one of the oldest structures in Borger. It was moved in 1926 from the town of Deahl, which was located in Carson County near Fritch.

     Mattie’s Tokyo Club and Dance Hall was located at 619 N. Main. It was owned by Mattie Castleberry who seems to have moved with the boomtowns and left Borger in 1929 when martial law was declared. She was well known for her bright yellow Cadillac.

     Pete Borger House is purported to be the oldest house in Borger. It is located at 326 Coble and was built in 1926. The houses in the 400 block of Coble are also of the same vintage.

     The Grand Hotel and Grand Hardware Store were located at 618 N. Main, where the Hutchinson County Historical Museum now resides. It was built in 1927 by John and Gus Yiantsou, who were Immigrants from Greece. John died in 1929 and Gus leased the building out as a Hotel upstairs and Hardware Store downstairs.

From Johnson, Joseph Kelly; Borger: a Study of Community and Personal Disorientation in a Texas Oil Town. Master’s Degree Thesis Austin, Texas 1930.

     Texas had been the home of several oil boom towns prior to Borger. Among them, Ranger(1917), Burkburnett(1918), Mexia(1912), and Gander Slough(Goose Creek 1916). The foreman on an oil derrick was sometimes called the Gang Pusher. Amarillo’s population by 1930 was 43,000.

     Most of the population in Hutchinson County in 1926 was located north of the Canadian River around Plemons. Only four men in 1926 who lived south of the Canadian River qualified for jury duty.

     It was sometimes as much as a sixteen hour drive from the town of Panhandle to the future vicinity of Borger. After the boom, four towns sprang up – Isom, Dixon Creek, Whittenburg, and Borger.

     After the Borger Boom, Joe Jeffers, a Baptist Minister stated that 1500 women were shipped into Borger. These women lived on Dixon Street or in the Rooming houses of North Main Street. Over 1000 lived on Dixon Street alone. Each paid a weekly fine of 18 dollars for the privilege of providing entertainment for the men. Drinking and gambling establishments also paid a “fine” for their services.

     There were 49 dance halls. In the Palisades Dance Hall, 2 men were killed and one woman shot. Games included 21 and Craps.

     The streets were jammed with cars and it was not uncommon to see cars backed up for miles. Wrecks were frequent, but went uninvestigated. In the restaurants, they asked if you wanted a beer with your chicken. Water sold for 75 cents a barrel.

     In July, 1926, the Postmaster estimated about 35,000 people in Borger and within ten miles of Borger the population might be 50,000. With so many people working on rigs all around the area, a good figure was nearly impossible to obtain.

     In August, 1926 school was opened in wooden buildings which were replaced by brick by September 1928. A new City Hall was built in 1927.

     The first jail was a wooden shack 14 by 30 feet with a single window barred with wooden bars and two tiers of bunks on one side. Prisoners were hand cuffed and fastened to a chain to prevent escape. There were two posts in the middle of the room to which unruly prisoners could be chained. Up to 80 prisoners might be housed here. Two-gun Dick had a long chain at the Bull Pen or headquarters to which the outlaws were chained. Links were two feet apart. This arrangement was called the chain gang. The common punishments included fining and pistol whipping. Joe Welsh was the first deputy sheriff.

     The first period of Borger History ended with the Martial Law of April 17, 1927.

     Panhandle Power and Light built into Borger early and by 1927 had built a water supply system.