Show oil boom town of today quiet as ones back yard RANKIN TEX this 1 Is what passes today for or an oil boom town its as quiet as your backyard gone are the brawling boom days day when poor men struck it rich overnight when roughnecks rough necks drank bootleg whisky like water and fought in muddy streets for the sake of fighting that happened until the late 1020 wherever new new oil fields were wire found from pennsylvania to california its still happening in canada oil men say but in the united states the boom town has grown stolid changes in machines and men and laws are ar behind the boo boom m towns new respectability workers used to have to crowd into an brider Undersized sized hamlet near the field or live in tents and bunk houses on the job because their rattletrap cars bogged down in narrow roads hub deep in mud now they can spread out as tar far away from the field althey tee feel like driving over paved highways in the old times hardly a day passed that a man hurt on a rickety rig now mow equipment Is 13 safe cafe and tested to make sure cure it stays that way amonds roughnecks rough necks find college men petroleum engl engi and geologists get ting ready to be executives by b learning the horny handed end of the business wildcatters Wildcat who drilled drill edt wells with barely enough money to td buy baling wire to hold their rigs together went out of business busl nesa when the big companies started leasing and the states began laying down the law about where and how close together wells could be sunk rankin with a rich new field in her lap is still a peaceful town of cf ranchers and storekeepers |