Yates Hotel
Rankin, Upton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built as showplace by Ira Yates, for boom crowds drawn by his $15,000,000 gusher of 1926, on dry ranch with which he was "stuck" in swap off of a general store. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ira Yates famously felt "stuck" with a dry West Texas ranch he had taken in a trade for a general store — until a 1926 gusher worth a reported fifteen million dollars turned his luck upside down. As boom crowds poured into Rankin chasing the oil strike, Yates built this hotel as a showplace to house them. It stands as a monument to the wild fortunes of the Permian Basin oil rush.
Why it matters
The building captures the overnight transformation of dusty ranch country into boomtown wealth during the Texas oil rushes that reshaped the state's economy.
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Related people
- · Ira Yates
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First State Bank of Rankin
Rankin, TX
Founded in 1911 on the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad, Rankin exploded with activity when immense oil fields were discovered in its trade area between 1923 and 1926. To serve the booming economy, the First State Bank of Rankin—Upton County's first financial institution—opened its doors in June 1927. Its founding officers and directors read as a roster of the ranchers, oilmen, and merchants driving the region's growth.
Rankin Cemetery
Rankin, TX
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.
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.
The Benedum Oil Field and Benedum Townsite
Rankin, TX
The Texas Railroad Commission named this field in 1950 for Michael Late "Mike" Benedum, the legendary "great wildcatter" who spent nearly seventy years finding oil from West Virginia and Louisiana to Mexico, Colombia, and across Texas. With partner Joe C. Trees he opened field after field, and the discovery of the Big Lake field in 1923 on University of Texas land helped unlock the vast wealth of the Permian Basin. The Benedum field's first well was completed in 1948 at more than 12,000 feet, adding to the oil revenues that built Texas's public university and school endowments.