Borger City Directory, 1936 - 1937.

Once a broad prairie broken only by the Canadian river, Borger and the surrounding country, thickly populated with oil derricks, has become a “city of flowing gold.” It was known as the city with the blackest smoke and the whitest people.

     In 1921 when the first oil well in this vicinity was begun there were only a little over 700 people in the county. The well, drilled by the Gulf Production company, the B. F. Burnett, four miles southwest of Borger, was brought in the first part of the next year.

     Wells throughout the immediate area sprang into existence. By 1925 thee were a large number of wells in northern Carson County south of Hutchinson County, and in the Dixon Creek area in the southern part of Hutchinson County. The McIlroy interests brought the first well of the city’s immediate vicinity in 1925, the Dixon Creek No. 1 located on Dixon Creek.

     Two men realizing the value of the land in the event of a “boom” purchased 240 acres of land, now of the Borger “townsite” for $12,000. A. P. “Ace” Borger, who met his death in a shooting duel in 1934 in the post office of the town named after him, and John R. Miller, a lawyer and now the present mayor of Borger, were those farsighted business men who made the purchase of the property from Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Weatherly in March of 1926.

     Not long after the townsite was laid out news of the oil development spread like wildfire bringing thousands of people to Borger. The sale of the lots the first day totaled $100,000 and at the end of the two years over $500,000. At one time the city’s population reached approximately 36,000 and the Main Street of Borger stretched five miles long.

     The first building was a combination post office and general store. Miller brought the mail from Panhandle and distributed it at the telephone building. The city was covered with tents, shanties and unpretentious wooden buildings. A fire broke out in 1926 burning a number of frame buildings in the area where the Rig Theater now stands and the section was replaced by brick structures, the first in the city.

     Miller, the first mayor of the city, erected a small building which was used for the city hall. Lack of a jail instituted the use of a chain in front of the structure where the unruly were held in bonds. The first murder occurred in 1927 when Policeman Earl Rigley was slain in November in a gun fight with desperadoes. Three other officers were killed later in the same year.

     “Whitey” Walker, Ray Terrell and Matthew Kimes were a few of the notorious characters who frequented Signal Hill east of Stinnett. The officers were unable to cope with the lawlessness of the mushroom town and in 1929 when District Attorney John A. Holmes was killed martial law came into effect.

Population

In 1890 the population of Hutchinson County was 58; in 1900 303; in 1910 892; in 1920, 1,721; 1930 15,848. At the present time the population of the city of Borger approximates 7,000 people. 17,000 people live in the county.

Business

There are over 200 retail merchants serving Borger’s vast trade empire with all commodities. During the two preceding years the local dealers for three principle low-priced automobiles and dealers in electric refrigeration sold more units than corresponding dealers in Amarillo, a neighboring city of 45,000. Electricity and water service connections have shown an increase of 25 per cent in the past three years.

Carbon Black Industry

The city of Borger is built on the development of natural gas in this territory. The most important use, from a local standpoint, of the natural gas resources, is the manufacture of carbon black. At the present time the Panhandle gas fields are producing 80% of the world’s carbon black supply, and 60% of the world’s supply is in the Borger field. During the past year the shift to the Borger field has been more pronounced than heretofore, due to the conservation measures and the limitation of the use of sweet gas in the manufacture of carbon black.

     Within the past two years two large plants have been constructed at Sanford nine miles west of Borger, by the United Carbon Company—The Panhandle Carbon company, three miles west of Borger, now has under construction an additional unit. The J. M. Huber Carbon company is adding two units to its plant, two miles west of Borger. Carbon plants in Hutchinson County alone are producing per day 425,000 pounds or approximately ten carloads of carbon black. The carbon black plants in Hutchinson county have a monthly payroll in excess of $70,000 and employ permanently and continuously 800 men.

Oil and Gas

Borger is the center of the gathering systems of the three long-distance major inter-state gas pipe lines; the Indianapolis-Detroit, the Chicago Line and the Omaha Line. The Chicago Line is now operating at full capacity and the largest gas compressor station in the world is operated at Fritch 12 miles west of Borger. Three additional units have been added during the past year with 1250 H. P. units, bringing the total at this station to 15.

     The Northern Natural Gas company which operates the line from this field to Omaha, has its compressor station at Skellytown. Their business is developing rapidly and they will no doubt enlarge their compressor plant in the next year or two. The Panhandle Eastern Pipe line company has a pipe line running to Indianapolis and has a contract with the city of Detroit to furnish natural gas.

     In Hutchinson county there are ten large natural gasoline plants. The average monthly production of these plants is 250,000 barrels of gasoline per month.

Refineries

Second in importance to natural gas is the production and refining of crude oil. In the last two years drilling east of Borger has resulted in the discovery of a prolific dolomite pay field with very long life expectancy.

     Conservative geologists have estimated total recoverable oil in the Panhandle field at one billion barrels of oil during the first nine years of the field’s life, approximately 25,000,000 barrels of oil have been produced.

      The Alamo refinery of the Phillips Petroleum company located three miles from the city of Borger is the largest and the principal refinery of this great company. At the present time it has a daily capacity of 25,000 barrels of crude oil. The average output for the past two years has been in excess of 20,000 barrels per day. During 1934 the gasoline recovery was 67.59% of crude oil charged. It is possible for this modern refinery to recover 84% of the crude oil charged by cracking all of the fuel oil down to gasoline. This refinery employs regularly and continuously six hundred men with an average payroll of $60,000. It has 14 stills including both the crude and cracking units.
(Helen Louise Montgomery)

Farming

Farming in Hutchinson County began in 1910 The development of tractors, Combines and trucks, in 1915 to 1920 turned the ranch lands into farms of wheat, maize, and other grains. The Dust Bowl days of 1930 to 1937 kept farmers barely hanging on. A memorable black duster hit Hutchinson County in April 1935 and the dust was so thick that it was darker than night. After a dust storm, farm machinery would be covered in blow dirt and in some places the dust was so heavy that it caused roofs to collapse. In the 1950’s, development of hybrid seeds and irrigation moved farming ahead. Irrigation was cheap, since the gas companies would let the agriculturists use gas for small fees, or even for no charge. The engines of the trucks were primitive, and could burn the raw or drip gas right from the well head. At first, this gas was blown away and so it was not considered stealing to borrow gas from the drip units.