Thrift
Burkburnett vicinity, Wichita County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Ghost Townsite, 1.25 miles north) "Newtown", or "Thrift", originated about 1919 in the northwestern extension of the Burkburnett Oil Field. Early in its existence it gained prestige by the founding of a bank--the only one in the area at that time. Mostly a tent city, Thrift suffered many fires. One of these, started by lightning striking an oil tank in 1920, caused two deaths and wiped out much of the town. Thrift's Post Office opened in 1925. After the population shrank to 30 in 1929, the bank, a church, school, and store served people living at oil field pump stations; but all of Thrift's buildings are now gone. (1977, 2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Springing up around 1919 amid the northwestern reaches of the Burkburnett oil boom, the tent town of "Newtown" or "Thrift" briefly boasted the area's only bank. Fire plagued the flimsy settlement — a 1920 blaze sparked by lightning striking an oil tank killed two and destroyed much of the town — and as the boom faded its population dwindled until, today, every building is gone.
Why it matters
Thrift is a classic Texas oil-boom ghost town, a reminder of how quickly fortune-seeking settlements rose and vanished on the petroleum frontier.
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Related events
- · Burkburnett oil boom
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Northwest Extension Oilfield
Burkburnett, TX
Oil drew little attention here until April 17, 1919, when the Bob Waggoner Well No. 1 blew in at 4,800 barrels a day, opening the Northwest Extension Oilfield on the former Burk Burnett ranch. A frenzy of derricks followed, and hastily built tent cities—Thrift, Springtown, Waggoner City, and others—sprang up to serve the boom. Today only scattered pump jacks work the field that once roared.
Bridgetown
Burkburnett, TX
When the Burkburnett oil field pushed northwest in 1919, Bridgetown erupted at the Texas end of a mile-long toll bridge over the Red River, becoming the wealthiest of a dozen boom camps as lease values soared from $10 to $20,000 an acre. This tent-and-shanty city of thousands even drew the U.S. Supreme Court to station a receiver—Frederick A. Delano, uncle of future president Franklin D. Roosevelt—to settle riverbed oil disputes with help from the Texas Rangers. As the oil ran thin the town collapsed, and by 1935 the post office had closed and the land returned to range.
Receiver Bridge
Burkburnett, TX
When the Burkburnett oil boom sent drillers into the bed of the meandering Red River around 1920, it reignited an old question: exactly where did Texas end and Oklahoma begin? The U.S. Supreme Court placed the disputed land under federal control, naming Frederick A. Delano — uncle of future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt — as receiver. To reach the derricks he ordered a one-lane wooden bridge built to midstream; the boundary was fixed at the river's south bank in 1923, and a 1935 flood later wrecked the span.
Charley Lee Coe
Burkburnett, TX
Charley Lee Coe was an oil-field driller in the Burkburnett boom country, living with his wife and three children in early 1923. On a morning he had planned to take his daughter to the county fair, he saw a neighbor's house ablaze and pushed through the smoke to reach two small boys trapped in a bedroom. One child was pulled to safety through a knocked-out door panel, but the flames overtook Coe and the younger boy. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission awarded him a posthumous Gold Medal and a pension for his family.