McCamey, TX

McCamey is an Upton County city five miles east of the Pecos River along U.S. 67. The 2020 census counted 1,831 residents. Its original boom came from George B. McCamey's 1925 wildcat well, which pulled a railroad-linked oil town into existence and made McCamey an important West Texas oil center. The Mendoza Trail Museum at Santa Fe Park keeps that older landscape close at hand with Native American artifacts, fossils, and oil-boom relics.

Wind power adds a second industrial layer. The Southwest Mesa Wind Project brought 107 turbines and 75 megawatts to the area in 1999, and the Texas Legislature later gave McCamey its “Wind Energy Capital of Texas” title. McCamey Independent School District, local health care, retail, ranching, oil work, and the wind fields all belong to the town's present economy. The city is small, but its local character is tied to energy infrastructure you can trace from the old boomtown center out into the surrounding West Texas landscape.