One of the many storefronts in town, pictured here, is now closed, its only purpose now seemingly for teenagers to show support for the high school football team. As Mike Aulds of Aulds Funeral Home here says, if you see a light on late at night in Archer City, you know there's been a death in town. Archer City has always been small and off the beaten path, a one-Dairy Queen town with a single yellow blinking light at the intersection. But underlying Aulds' humor is a grim reality. Like so many small West Texas communities today, hit hard by drought, oil busts and the dying off of family ranching businesses, Archer City has fewer people now.
Stilled pump jacks line the horizon.
The consolidation of ranches and farms have long made the independent rancher a thing of the past. In downtowns, businesses have closed, and storefronts are left empty. The youth leave for the cities, and the remaining population grows old. It is a story repeated across the West Texas plains. Larry McMurtry helped make an icon of all depressed small towns, it is being felt keenly.