Iraan

Ira Yates came to his oil fortune the long way. Born in Hopkins County on October 29, 1859, he lost his father in 1865 and his mother in 1871 or 1872, and went to work as a cowboy with his brothers; a ranch family's governess taught him to read and write at fourteen. About 1913 he paid 216 cattle for a failing store in Rankin, and in 1915 traded the store for Thomas Hickox's 16,640-acre River Ranch, though a friend warned that even buffalo knew better than to cross the Pecos.

What the plaque says

Iraan In 1922 three local businessmen, O. W. Parker, George Thompson, and I. G. Yates, leased the drilling rights on twenty sections of ranch land to Transcontinental Oil Company. After two dry holes were drilled the I. G. Yates well No. 1 blew in on October 28, 1926. The area around ranch headquarters became a boom town. Because it was isolated, support of the increased population became difficult. Yates converted a barn into a hotel and the area became known as Red Barn Community. In April 1927 Yates commissioned H. L. George of San Angelo to survey a townsite at this location, 3 miles north of Red Barn. A contest was held to choose a name for the new town. The winner was "Iraan", submitted by C. R. Hallmark who combined the names of Ira Yates and his wife Ann. His prize was a city lot. The first business to operate in Iraan was a service station run by K. P. Looney. A Post Office was opened in 1928. A nondenominational chapel known as union church was set up from contributions by Yates and Mid-Kansas Oil Company. During the boom days of Iraan, V. T. Hamlin worked as a free-lance writer. It was here that he created the comic strip "Alley Oop" . A park honoring his cartoon characters is located in the city. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Alley Oop Park and Iraan Museum — 0.5 mi
  An oil-boom town named for Ira and Ann Yates, where the creator of the caveman comic Alley Oop once worked, and a park of giant cartoon figures beside the town museum.
• Fort Lancaster State Historic Site — 21 mi
  An 1855 post on Live Oak Creek above the Pecos, on the lower road to El Paso, where the army's camels passed three times and Buffalo Soldiers held off an attack in 1867.
• Rankin Museum (Yates Hotel) — 21 mi
  The fireproof hotel Ira Yates built beside the Orient railway depot months after oil came in on his ranch in 1926, kept as it was down to the wicker lobby furniture.
• Mendoza Trail Museum — 24 mi
  A 1966 museum in a 1925 oil town, named for the Spanish officer who crossed this country in 1683 at the invitation of the Jumano, with a 1915 bungalow beside it.

More markers nearby

• Marathon Oil Company Discovery Well — 0.7 mi
• Giddings' Pecos Station — 4.9 mi
• Camp Melvin and the Pontoon Crossing of the Pecos River — 9.4 mi
• Sheffield — 16 mi