Essays
Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado
McCamey historian Ethie Eagleton
June 30, 2004
“Couple-three” weeks ago Lyn McEwen called about the story and contest about Girvin and in chatting she mentioned she had a book by Ethie Eagleton entitled “On the Last Frontier, A History of Upton County, Texas.” She was so kind as to bring it to me for review. Ms. Eagleton is another of the unsung heroes of west Texas, preserving the stories of our bioregion. Her book, and many other such books and people should be utilized and celebrated by our citizenry.
Nancy McKinley is Midland County’s “grand dame” of historical preservation. June Reid was the driving force behind the Stanton County Museum. Charlotte Beauchamp of Kermit has established herself on the Internet, creating many of the regional Genweb sites for small towns, as well as supplying information about the small towns of west Texas on the TexasEscapes website. Paul Patterson of Crane preserved many of the old cowboy tales of the region. The list of preservationists who help define being west Texan by keeping us in touch with our past keeps going “on and on.” We should all know more about our home!
Ms. Eagleton taught social studies in the McCamey High School from 1943 until 1961. She utilized the Junior Historian program of the Texas Historical Society, requiring her students to produce papers on local history. I hope that the complete collection of those essays still exists somewhere – I want to see them someday. Ms. Eagleton also wrote stories for “The Bulletin of the Texas Historical Society” and “The Naturalist.” She was also a founding member of the Upton County Historical Society, and was influential in founding the Mendoza Trail Museum in McCamey. While serving on the State Historical Committee she was allotted 25 historical markers to put up – as a result, many of the markers to be found in Upton County “were her doings.”
I am a firm proponent of a “storied” countryside – a person should be able to look around their regional landscape and be able to name landmarks, tell stories about the people that have lived there, know the major native plants and their histories and uses, and to know the yearly patterns of faunal peregrinations and floral displays. Some of the stories in Upton County began in 1919, when the University of Texas and the Bureau of Economic Geology sent ten young men to survey the area. They were excited and enthusiastic about their job, and every evening would come to the local young people’s hangout – the Nix Barber Shop and Confectionary in Rankin.
Until 1910 most of the county had been in the hands of the old-time open range ranchers. With the 4-Section Act, folks like Henry Halff of Midland decided to get into the land development business. He started the town of Upland, and the population of the county began to grow as small landowners attempted farming ventures. Within a few years the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railroad bypassed Upland, so the town picked up and moved 11 miles south and became Rankin. With all the “going-ons” only the major landmarks had “long-used” names. The cowboys of the open-range had started the process of naming the landscape.
At Nix’s, the surveyors and the young townspeople gathered around a piano and sang almost every night. They would also talk about what they had seen as they surveyed. Names have to be put on maps, so by the time they finished their work, lots of mesas and draws had names they did not before. The names of many of the landmarks still on maps of Upton County were created by that group of young people, as a reflection of mishaps, adventures, and wildlife sightings at that time.
In 1925, oil was discovered near what is now McCamey. In 18 months time 10,000 people had moved to the region to work in the oilfields. In 1926 the Yates No. 1-A oil well came in. Most of the Yates oil field lay in Crockett and Pecos County, but Rankin and McCamey became the supply centers of the region thanks to the railroad. Despite this influx of people, the landscape itself was still “filling up” with stockraisers. Dee Locklin moved to the Bobcat Hills (named by those surveyors) south of McCamey in 1931, claiming the last bit of open range and by the mid 1930s their fencing ended an era of “close-herded critters and community predator drives.”
By the 1930s, stories of Upton County began to be filled with details of life in the oil field. Humble Oil, Plymouth Oil, Benedum Oil, and Brown and Thorp Drilling played major roles in supporting the communities of the county. A dozen of the folks that called about the Girvin story, such as Jerry Garms (the winner of the contest), were folks that had worked in the oil fields of Upton County. Having to endure blistering heat, withering winds, bitter cold, supply problems, rattlesnakes and the county’s remoteness some fine strong people were created, proud of their work in the county. Elmer Kelton, in “Honor at Daybreak,” captures the bustling boomtown life of the early day Upton County oilfield.
In the 1940s Ms. Eagleton’s 7th and 8th grade students in McCamey began collecting stories and artifacts as Junior Historians. For twenty years her high school students gathered material for the Mendoza Trail Museum, which the city built for them in the 1960s. These same kids formed the McCamey Teen Center, created rules for behavior, and ran the facility without adult help. I admire Ms. Eagleton’s ability to inspire young people and mentor them as they became self-sufficient and self-directed adults. Her technique of charging her students with a long-range (multi-year) goal is rarely used in public education. It seems to have been a superb pedagogical technique with benefits far beyond mere retention of knowledge.
The stories of communities that work together to create facilities such as the Mendoza Trail Museum are important – for every generation should and can create community institutions that reflect local customs, history, and landscape. It is one of the best ways to create a sense of community identity and cohesiveness.