The Cordova daily times., 1922-01-31
TEXAS OIL CITY SPRANC UP IN
 NIGHT


 | population in October, 1921, where old settler farmed for living and eked out bare existence from their lands: where they rode COW horses to town" and hitched them to a hitching post where even the town hall bell had not tolled for years
 because of the cobb webs and bird
 nests-to bultling city of SO,O00
 people, and all in few months, this is the recent record of Mexia. an old time Texas town, which is
 feeling the effects of one of the num- erous oil development in southwest. 1 The population now consists of an
 assortment of oil field followeds and thousands of men and women | seeking employment, leaving an old
 field for the new. coming on trains 1 from all parts of the United States, or in wagons trucks or horseback" some bringing their assortment of household goods and camping outfits and finding from ten to a hundred men for every job, and no place 1 available for spending the night. Consequently because of the ex- orbitant prices charged for a room, if one were lucky enough to secure 1 one. hundreds of men, favored by the long continued mild winter are sleep ing on the grass along the railroad tracks, public parking places and. in fact. any where they could. Over 1 night bed i'll tent marked "A place to fhop' scared from 50 cents a night to s3. night in crude plank structure where one didn't know his bed-fellow or the hundreds of others in the single room cost s5 Prices charged the few who were lucky enough to get one of the few
 nrivate dwellings vary, but all were high enough to satisfy the most fas-
 tidious millionaire. But men are glad to get a bed at any price and many could not find shelter except
 that provided by nature.
 l Rail traffic jumped hundreds of 1 per cent. There are two trunk lines. tue Houston & Texas Central and 1 the Trinity and Brazos Valley lead ing through here and passenger traf- fic is very heavy while freight trains I are frequently seen running three abreast, so heavy is the demand for oil machinery One road is said to have spent S6OO,OO0 in enlarging it's ! facilities
 The water situation is not alto gether what could be desired. The water was procured from spring short distance from town, and al az high in price as gasoline. Son;ee oil man. however, came along ana drilled all oil we'll right side by side witt the sprinb, tapping. the water supply so badly that lately it has been entirely stopped. Water wagons have been requisitioned and although they are busy all day and night hauling water to homes, res taurants and improvised "bunkins
 houses, they are not sufficient to cover the field.
 Consequently the town has been declared " very unsanitary" by citl- zens in heated arguments at the meetings of the city council, which is making every effort to remedy the situation Mayor Riddle informed the irate citizens that this "could not be done overnight"
 Getting a bath here is quite an experience, if indeed not task. The old saying eff you want to do some thing big-wash an elephant cer tainly has found parallel in Mexia. This luxury may be found, outside the woodland creeks, only i'll downtown barber shop. The bath house is a stall in a wooden floor, planked-in enclosure. Just plain pine blanks are slippery, but the pro- prietors of the house have found that it is not necessary to maintain first aid kits because the board floors are warped enough to allow the bather a foothold. Cleanliness, after all, is next to godliness," but bath in Mexia is next to impossible
 But as for oil There are solid six miles of new derricks. drillers outfits, tents, wooden buildings and people where once there was the open prairie survey of all local lumber pen shows that building com pleted or contracted for since Oc- tober 1. totals between s3500,000 and