McCamey Junior High School
McCamey, Upton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site is "Old High School," an outgrowth of 1920s oil boom. No school existed in McCamey prior to 1925, when 20 students were taught in a tin shack on 5th street. A year later school had 550 pupils in classes held in dance halls, skating rinks and 2 churches. Desks and seats were apple and orange crates. This building, erected in 1927, was community center-- setting for weddings, funerals, meetings of Draft Board, other activities. Used as high school until 1961. First superintendent, C. V. Compton, set high goals-- which since have guided the schools.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the 1920s oil boom conjured McCamey out of the desert, the town had no school at all—just twenty pupils in a tin shack in 1925. A year later 550 children crowded into dance halls, skating rinks, and churches, using apple and orange crates for desks. This 1927 building finally gave them a proper home, and it doubled as the community's civic center, hosting everything from weddings to Draft Board meetings until it closed as a high school in 1961.
Why it matters
The scramble to school a boomtown's children shows how instant oil communities improvised the institutions of settled life, with the schoolhouse often serving as the whole town's gathering place.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1920s, oil changed West Texas. Discoveries in the Permian Basin brought a flood of workers, speculators and families into land that had been sparsely settled ranch country. Towns appeared almost overnight, often long before anyone had built roads, water systems or schools.
McCamey was one of those instant towns. Its population grew so fast that ordinary institutions couldn't keep up. For a while, the needs of a boomtown full of children ran far ahead of the buildings available to serve them.
This was also the era when Americans came to see public schools as essential to every community. A proper schoolhouse told everyone that a place intended to last.
People & events
Before 1925, McCamey had no school at all. That year, the first 20 students met in a tin shack on 5th Street. That's hard to imagine in the heat of a West Texas summer.
Only a year later, the school had 550 pupils. With no proper building, classes met wherever there was room: dance halls, skating rinks and two churches. Children sat at desks and seats made from apple and orange crates. It was improvised and crowded, and it showed how determined the town was to educate its children.
In 1927 this building went up and gave the school a real home. It quickly became the heart of the town, hosting weddings, funerals, Draft Board meetings and many other community events. It served as the high school until 1961. The first superintendent, C. V. Compton, set high goals that went on to guide the town's schools for years afterward.
Its place in the American story
McCamey's school story shows the human side of America's oil booms. Oil is often told as a story of gushers and fortunes, but boomtowns were also full of families who needed schools, churches and places to gather.
The fact that Draft Board meetings were held here connects this small West Texas town to national events. When the country called men to military service, the local schoolhouse was where the community handled that serious business.
Across rural and small-town America, the schoolhouse often doubled as the town hall, the chapel and the gathering place. This building is a clear example of that tradition: a single structure where a community celebrated, grieved and organized itself.
If you visit
Stand in front of the "Old High School" and try to imagine the scene in 1926: hundreds of children crowding into dance halls and skating rinks, sitting on fruit crates, while the town around them was barely a year old.
Then think about everything else this building saw: weddings, funerals, and neighbors gathering for the Draft Board meetings. It is as much a community landmark as a school.
McCamey sits in the oil country of the Permian Basin, and a drive through the area gives you a real sense of the landscape that created the town. Look for pumpjacks and wide-open vistas, and add this stop to a West Texas road trip about the oil boom and the communities it created.
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
- · C. V. Compton
Themes & tags
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