Boomtown Blues - Spring/Summer 2026

“I’ve seen towns leap into being overnight and become deserted almost as quick. I’ve seen old farmers, bent with toil, and ignorant of the feel of ten dollars at a time, become millionaires in a week, by the way of oil gushers. And I’ve seen them blow every cent of it and die paupers. I’ve seen whole towns debauched by an oil boom and boys and girls go to the devil whole-sale. I’ve seen promising youths turn from respectable citizens to dope-fiends, drunkards, gamblers and gangsters in a matter of months.”

-Robert E. Howard, October, 1930

Boomtown Blues is a look into the boom-bust cycle of oil towns that sprang up in Texas, starting with the Spindletop eruption in 1906, the first major well in the state. Farmers soon came there looking for work, and were called ‘boll weevils’ but they soon graduated to ‘roughneck’ status. Life was harsh as many towns lacked the basic infrastructure to support so many workers moving in overnight. Men slept in cardboard boxes, in tents, or in their car, if they owned one. No clean drinking water, gas poisoning, fights in the saloons, but still they came, and on their backs was work clothes that had to last them. But ordinary people lived in those towns too, now on the periphery of the boom, people who didn’t plan on leaving when it went bust. They were staying in the only place they ever knew.