Wortham, TX

Wortham sits at State Highway 14 and Farm Road 27 in western Freestone County, a road-and-rail town with a strong oil-field memory. The community began on Robert B. Longbotham's 1834 Mexican land grant, and the Houston and Texas Central Railway planned a line through the area in 1871. Investors first called the townsite Tehuacana, then Long Bottom, before the name Wortham took hold in 1874 in honor of Col. Rice Wortham, the merchant who helped bring the railroad.

By the 1920s, Wortham had become the center of the Wortham Field. The Roy Simmons No. 1 discovery well came in as a gusher in 1924, and within three weeks more than 300 rigs were working the field; the boom slowed after 1927. That oil history gives the Oil City nickname a clear reason and gives the highway junction more weight than a simple crossroads. Wortham ISD, home of the Bulldogs, still puts the school at the center of town routines. Wortham's local clue is the handoff from Mexican land grant to railroad town to oil field.