Masterson
Masterson, Moore County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1927, three companies combined to construct a natural gas plant and pipeline to produce gas for Denver, Colorado. Small houses and a hotel were constructed for married and single workers. A one-room school was soon constructed for the workers’ children on land donated by Miles Bivins, and the small community came to be known as Bivins. In later years the camp and the school expanded. To meet the demand for helium during World War II, a plant to be operated by the Bureau of Mines was constructed near Bivins; it began production in 1943, after U.S. entry into the war. In order to provide services to the workers at the new Exell Helium Plant, seventy-five homes, garages, a recreation hall and a playground were also constructed at the site. During the late 1940s a post office was established in the community and when the postal service rejected the name “Bivins,” the name “Masterson” was submitted after a prominent area rancher. A Baptist church was organized and attended by members of all denominations, and community activities such as 4-H, Boy and Girl Scouts and home demonstration clubs flourished. In 1963, residents of the original Bivins site were notified that their homes were to be sold and they must move, and residents at the Exell site also began to move away, leaving both camps practically abandoned by 1970. The local school closed in 1978 and the post office closed in 1984. While the Exell Helium Plant closed in the late 1990s, the Bivins plant continues to gather and produce natural gas. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1927 three companies joined forces to build a natural gas plant and pipeline carrying fuel all the way to Denver, and a small company town of workers' cottages, a hotel, and a one-room school grew up around it, first called Bivins. World War II brought a second boom: a federal Bureau of Mines helium plant opened nearby in 1943, ringed by seventy-five new homes and a recreation hall for the Exell workers. Renamed Masterson after the post office rejected "Bivins," the community thrived until the 1960s, when residents were told to move on and the twin camps emptied by 1970.
Why it matters
Masterson embodies the rise and fall of the 20th-century energy company town, and the strategic importance of Panhandle helium and natural gas to the nation's wartime and industrial needs.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Masterson's story begins in 1927, in an era when America's appetite for energy was reaching out across long distances for the first time. That year, three companies combined to build a natural gas plant and a pipeline to carry fuel all the way to Denver, Colorado — an ambitious reach across state lines that signaled how the Panhandle's underground wealth was being wired into the wider nation.
What grew up around that plant was a company town, one of the most distinctive social forms of the twentieth-century industrial landscape. Small houses went up for married and single workers, a hotel was built, and a one-room school soon followed for the workers' children — on land donated by area rancher Miles Bivins. The little community naturally took his name and became known as Bivins.
Then came the second, larger wave, driven by war. World War II created an urgent national demand for helium — a light, non-flammable gas with critical military and industrial uses — and the federal government answered by building a plant nearby, operated by the Bureau of Mines. It began production in 1943, after the United States had entered the war, and it turned a small gas camp into something the nation needed.
People & events
The human shape of Masterson came in two building booms. The first centered on the 1927 gas plant, where the company put up cottages, a hotel, and that one-room schoolhouse on Miles Bivins's donated land — the kind of paternalistic, self-contained settlement where the employer supplied not just jobs but housing, schooling, and the basic furniture of daily life.
The second boom arrived with the Exell Helium Plant. To serve its workers, seventy-five homes, garages, a recreation hall, and a playground were constructed — a whole new neighborhood raised around a wartime industry. Community life flourished in the way small towns did in that period: a Baptist church was organized but attended by people of all denominations, and residents threw themselves into 4-H, Boy and Girl Scouts, and home demonstration clubs.
The naming of the town is a small, telling episode. When a post office was established in the late 1940s, the postal service rejected the name 'Bivins,' so the community submitted 'Masterson' instead, after a prominent area rancher. The town's decline was as decisive as its rise: in 1963 residents of the original Bivins site were told their homes would be sold and they must move, Exell residents began drifting away too, and by 1970 both camps stood practically abandoned. The school closed in 1978, the post office in 1984.
Its place in the American story
Masterson is a compact history of the American company town — built by industry, sustained by industry, and emptied when industry no longer needed it. These settlements existed to serve a plant rather than the other way around, which gave them vitality while the work lasted and left them exposed the moment it didn't. When the residents were told to move on in the 1960s, the town's fate was sealed not by any local failure but by decisions made in the interest of the operation.
The site also marks the strategic importance of Panhandle helium to the nation. Helium is genuinely rare and genuinely essential, and the World War II push that brought the Bureau of Mines plant to this area reflects a moment when the federal government treated the gas as a resource worth building a town around. For decades, this corner of Texas helped supply a substance the country could not easily get elsewhere.
And Masterson embodies the broader arc of twentieth-century energy: natural gas piped across states to distant cities, wartime industry conjured almost overnight, and the quiet persistence of extraction long after the surrounding community faded. It's a reminder that the map of American energy is dotted with places that gave everything to a plant and then let the plant outlive them.
If you visit
Masterson rewards the traveler who likes reading a landscape for what used to be there. This is a ghost town in the truest sense — two camps' worth of homes, a recreation hall, churches, and schools that once bustled, now largely gone or emptied. The feel of the place is spaciousness where community used to be, and that contrast is the whole point of coming.
Watch for the layered geography of the site: the original Bivins area around the 1927 gas plant, and the Exell area built out for the helium workers with its seventy-five homes and shared spaces. Even where buildings have vanished, imagining those two neighborhoods helps you understand how a single industry could raise a town twice over.
There's a striking coda here that sets Masterson apart from the average ghost town: the industry that started it all never fully stopped. While the Exell Helium Plant closed in the late 1990s, the original Bivins plant continues to gather and produce natural gas. So as you take in the quiet of the abandoned camps, remember that the very thing that built this place is, in some form, still at work beneath the Panhandle ground.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Miles Bivins
Related events
- · Exell Helium Plant
Themes & tags
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