Ranger, TX

Ranger is an Eastland County city whose name still comes with a boomtown echo. In October 1917, the McCleskey well hit oil southwest of town, and the strike turned Ranger into one of the country's most talked-about petroleum centers almost overnight. The boom brought workers, money, rough edges, and a fast-growing city; when the oil rush cooled, Ranger had to settle into a much smaller long-term shape. Interstate 20 now runs south and east with several exits, but the old boom is still the first thing locals use to describe the city's place in Texas history.

Ranger College opened in 1926, just after the oil boom ended, and it remains one of the community's biggest employers. Ranger High's Bulldogs won a state football championship in 1953, giving the town another piece of local pride that has nothing to do with drilling rigs. The city is now a mix of college, school, highway, and oil-field memory. Ranger is the kind of West Texas town where the biggest story happened in a rush, but the institutions that stayed are what keep the place going.