Rankin Cemetery
Rankin, Upton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery was established in 1915. Soon after the founding of Rankin, by civic leaders Ira Yates, J. H. Felps, Tom F. Hickox, and Dr. J. H. Johnson. Johnson's niece, Mary Evelyn Johnson, was the first to be buried here in 1916. Many burials occurred during the 1920s. When population in the area increased greatly after oil was discovered in Upton and Pecos counties. Rankin Cemetery is known to contain the unmarked graves of two bank robbers. The graveyard is a good reflection of the heritage of this area of the state. 1985
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1915 by civic leaders including Ira Yates and Dr. J. H. Johnson soon after the town of Rankin took shape, this cemetery received its first burial—Johnson's young niece—in 1916. Its graves multiplied in the 1920s as oil strikes in Upton and Pecos counties swelled the local population. Among its residents, tradition holds, lie the unmarked graves of two bank robbers.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a quiet ledger of the West Texas oil boom, recording both the leaders who built the town and the rough characters the era drew in.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early twentieth century, the far western plains of Texas were ranch country, with long distances, little rain, and settlements that were small and far apart. New towns came together around railroads, ranch headquarters and the determination of a few local leaders. A town needed a school, a church and a cemetery before it felt permanent.
The 1920s changed that part of Texas quickly. Oil was discovered in Upton and Pecos counties, part of the larger wave of discoveries across the Permian Basin. Towns that had been small ranching communities suddenly filled with oil workers, drillers, merchants and families.
Boom times were exciting, and they were also rough. Crowded camps, dangerous work and poor medical care meant that booming towns also buried a lot of people. The oil boom also brought money, and with it a certain number of outlaws. The graves in a West Texas cemetery from those years record all of this.
People & events
Rankin Cemetery was established in 1915, soon after the town itself was founded. The founders were a group of civic leaders: Ira Yates, J. H. Felps, Tom F. Hickox and Dr. J. H. Johnson. Setting aside ground for burials was one of the basic steps in turning a new settlement into a real town.
The first person buried here, in 1916, was Mary Evelyn Johnson, niece of Dr. Johnson, one of the founders. It's a sad and very personal beginning: a family that had helped create the town was the first to grieve in it.
In the 1920s, burials grew quickly as the oil discoveries brought new people into the area. Ira Yates's name would soon become closely tied to that oil history. The marker also records something every Western town seems to have: the cemetery holds the unmarked graves of two bank robbers. Their names aren't given, and the plain ground above them fits the story. They are remembered only for how their lives ended.
Its place in the American story
Small cemeteries like this one are some of the most honest records of how the American West was settled. Almost every settler shows up here eventually: founders and their families, workers who came for the boom, and a few outlaws the boom brought with it.
The oil discoveries of the 1920s in West Texas were part of a national change. The country was moving quickly into the automobile age, and the demand for oil was rising fast. Towns like Rankin grew because of that demand, and their populations, and their cemeteries, grew with them.
As the marker says, the graveyard reflects the heritage of this part of Texas. It links the ranching frontier to the oil era that followed. It also shows that settling the West was not just a story of grand events. It was also the story of ordinary people who lived, worked and died in hard country.
If you visit
Walk through the rows slowly and read the dates. The oldest graves go back to the town's first years, and you may notice more of them from the 1920s, when the oil boom filled this part of Texas with newcomers. The dates tell a story about how the town grew.
As always, be respectful: this is a place of mourning, and some families still care for these graves. Keep in mind that the two bank robbers lie in unmarked graves, so there's nothing to hunt for. Their story is part of the place, not a spot to find.
The cemetery makes a thoughtful stop on a drive through the Permian Basin, where pumpjacks and wide ranch land show the region's two histories side by side. For families, it's a good chance to talk about what it took to start a town in such a remote place, and why the first thing a community sets aside is often a place to bury its dead.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Ira Yates
- · Dr. J. H. Johnson
- · Mary Evelyn Johnson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Upton County
Rankin, TX
Carved from Tom Green County and created in 1887, Upton County was not fully organized until 1910. It honors John Cunningham Upton, a distinguished Confederate officer killed at the Second Battle of Manassas in 1862. A land of cattle and sheep ranches, the county later saw oil wells rise across its range, and its seat moved from Upland to Rankin in 1921.
King Mountain
McCamey, TX
Rising 3,000 feet as part of an uplift in the southern Permian Basin, King Mountain likely took its name from rancher Guy King, who drilled the first water well on its summit around 1900. The heights and their Rim Rock are tied to the oil fields that later defined Upton County, and many Indian relics have been found along the escarpment — traces of far older human presence.
McCamey
McCamey, TX
McCamey sprang up almost overnight in 1926 when a wildcat well came in, and within a year some ten thousand people had rushed to the new oil town. Named for driller George B. McCamey, whose discovery well opened dozens of fields across Upton County, it settled into a durable life of ranching—horses, sheep, and goats—once the boom cooled. Its parks and the Mendoza Trail Museum keep the memory of that frenzied birth alive.
O. W. Parker Ranch Headquarters
Iraan, TX
O. W. Parker arrived in Crockett County in 1902 as a ranch hand and slowly built holdings of his own on the vast West Texas range. When the 1926 discovery of the Yates oil field showered the region with new wealth, Parker built this fine Spanish Colonial Revival home, completed in 1930 and known for the orchards and gardens his wife Mildred tended.