Rankin, TX

Rankin is Upton County's seat in West Texas, a town born when the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway passed south of the older county seat at Upland. F.E. Rankin, a local rancher, donated land for the new townsite in 1911; a post office followed in 1912, and Rankin became the county seat in 1921. The railroad moved homes and businesses from Upland into the new settlement, giving the town a courthouse role before oil changed the scale of local life.

U.S. 67 and State Highways 349 and 329 meet around Rankin, tying the city to McCamey, Midland-Odessa, and the ranch and oil fields of the Permian Basin. The 1920s oil boom brought hotels, a brick school, courthouse, offices, and water and electric systems; later fields kept oil work alongside cattle and sheep ranching. Rankin Independent School District operates Rankin High School and James D. Gossett Elementary, while the Yates Hotel Museum and Mendoza Trail Museum keep county history in town. Rankin's map is broad and dry: courthouse blocks, school grounds, pumpjacks, ranch roads, and mesquite country.