Gasoline Cotton Gin

A gasoline engine was still a novelty in the Panhandle when this gin started, and the community took its name from it. M. E. Tomson, who managed the gin, opened Gasoline's first store and post office in 1907. A one-room school followed in 1908 and grew to four rooms by 1920. Electricity replaced kerosene lamps and carbide lights in 1929, though for years the town had a single telephone, and a literary society staged plays. After the gin burned, the school merged with Quitaque's in 1946 and the post office closed in 1948.

What the plaque says

Gasoline Cotton Gin Cotton farmers began settling in this area in 1903. A water well was dug in 1906, attracting more farmers and increasing crop production. Because the nearest cotton gin was ten miles away in Turkey, three partners (M.E. Tomson, J.H. Clack, and L.A. McCracken) bought a gasoline-powered engine and built a gin at this site. The first bale of cotton was ginned in April 1907. The presence of the gin led to the development of a town named Gasoline. The town declined after the railroad bypassed it in 1927 and the gin was destroyed in a 1938 fire. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway — 5.2 mi
  Red canyons below the Caprock escarpment where the Texas State Bison Herd, descended from calves Mary Ann Goodnight saved in 1878, has right of way on the park roads.
• Bob Wills Museum — 7.6 mi
  The old Turkey school, now holding Bob Wills's boots, hats, his father's fiddle and his barbershop tools, in the cotton town that fills each April for Bob Wills Day.

More markers nearby

• Lake Theo Folsom Bison Kill Site — 6.0 mi
• Bankhead Highway in Turkey — 7.6 mi
• First Methodist Church of Turkey — 7.8 mi
• William E. Schott — 10 mi