The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-06-19
SPRINGS UP ALMOST IN A DAY.
Cliff Patrick Writes of Wonderful Oil
Town of Ranger, Texas.

been keenly interested in the experi-
ences of Bamberg boys who have
been engaged in various phases OF
the work of the recent great war, 1t
occurred to me that they might also
find something of interest in the eX-
perience of one in pursuit OF peacetul
endeavors, which is, by the way, my
excuse for this tale of impressions
and observations gained in a really
remarkable town in the admittedly
great State of Texas.
In course of the past several
months, while looking after the in
terests of my company, it has been
my duty to visit many of the larger
cities of the United States and my
privilege to see many things which
were to me intensely interesting and
instructive, but it remained for the
town of Ranger, the real oil we'll
boom town of the Southwest, to
sweep me completely off my feet and
make me resolve to jot down for
you the before-mentioned impressions
and observations.
Being in Dallas, which, by the way,
is one of the South's cleanest, most
progressive, wealthiest, and generally
remarkable cities, was only about
1875. miles from Ranger and received
orders from my company to proceed
there to investigate certain transpor-
tation problems, in which we were
vitally interested, and report.
This wonder town of Ranger is, as
you have noted from the distance
mentioned, just a few hours ride west
from Dallas, and is on the Texas and
Pacific railroad, but owing to condi-
tions, about which I will speak later,
the T. and P. operates sleeping car
between Dallas and this point for the
convenience of the travelling public,
and if you rise early enough and has
ten to the ticket Office you may
please note that I say may-secure a
berth for the trip, which brings you
to Ranger, when the train is on time,
about 2 O'Clock in the morning. By
a very thoughtful provision of the
railroad company, however, the sleep
ing car is detached from the train and
one can remain undisturbed until Z
O'Clock in the morning.
! This I did, leaving Dallas on a
train which started more than three
hours late, and arrived several hours
before time to rise.
I've always found the smoking
room in the average sleeping car
about the best place yet to secure
real information on almost any topic,
place or thing in which one might be
interested and some of the stories Of
Ranger and the entire oil producing
district of Texas, which I heard on
this trip, fully bore this out.
When i stepped from the sleeping
car On the morning Of my arrival,
armed with a hand bag and the
largest size kodak I could secure, I
found the uncounted thousands of the
city, which, trifle more than year
ago when oil was first struck, was
nothing better than very, very
small and unimportant farming COM
munity, or as the wife of a soda dis
penser told me in answer to my
query, "only a starvation town. al
ready astir, each in his eager pur-
suit of the various tasks and schemes
for securing a dollar and at the same
time raising a cloud of dust which
was sitting.
Thinking that I had but few
hours in which to accomplish the
task I had come to do I set imme-
diately about it, the first thing being
to secure food which would sustain
me through the task, and finally sue
ceeded in squeezing my way into a
rough and hastily constructed lunch
counter where I enjoyed very
creditable breakfast of ham and real
fresh eggs with a cup of good coffee
between two dust-coated toilers of
the oil field and nearly fell off my
stool with surprise when my check
was handed me and found the cost
to be considerably less than this food
could have been bought for in Chi
cago, st. Louis, Pittsburg, Buffalo,
Memphis, Shreveport, or even in Dali
las or Fort Worth. This, as I soon
learned, was the first of the numer-
Gus surprises which I had during the
day.
Having fortified myself in this way
I Jared forth to secure the informa-
ton for which I had come. My first