Megargel

The townsite company sped Megargel's start with discounts to buyers who built on their lots within sixty days, and within three months there were twenty-three stores. H. Sheets drilled the discovery well of the Swastika field in 1923, and a 1925 strike four miles east set off the real boom: the population went from about 475 in 1923 to 1,200 by 1927. The school added four rooms and bought three buses in 1924. At its peak in the late 1920s Megargel had fifty businesses, among them machine shops, foundries, welding and boiler works and a refinery.

What the plaque says

In 1910, thirty years after the Texas Legislature created Archer County, the Gulf, Texas & Western Railroad began extending its track from Jacksboro to Seymour. That year the trinity townsite company laid out a new town along the tracks on land purchased from the prominent Meade family. The company named the town Megargel for the rail company president, Roy C. Megargel. Within a few months of its founding, Megargel had almost two dozen stores, a hotel, a bank and a post office. Town residents soon organized a school district, served initially by three teachers. The population continued to grow and in 1914, the Megargel Times began its run as the city paper. In 1917, Megargel residents built a new schoolhouse; the first graduating class, in 1918, consisted of five students. A second population boom began in 1923 with the opening of the nearby Swastika oilfield. Although Megargel suffered a disastrous downtown fire in 1925, it continued to grow rapidly as a result of regional oil production. By 1926, there were approximately 350 operating wells in the vicinity. During that time, the town's first theater opened. The school district, also growing, created one of Texas' earliest high school bands in 1927. Although the area continued to produce oil, the Great Depression and other factors caused a decline in population. During World War II, the railroad was abandoned and many residents left for military service or to work in wartime industries. Today, in addition to oil, agriculture is an important part of the economy. The Megargel Cemetery and other historic resources help preserve the link to the town's history and boom era. (2004)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — 20 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Fort Belknap — 23 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 31 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church — 0.6 mi
• Westover — 5.8 mi
• Round Timber Community — 8.5 mi
• St. Luke Lutheran Church of Olney — 10 mi