Wheeler County

Wheeler County filled up in the 1920s. Cotton took over: about 12,400 acres in 1920 became more than 93,000 by 1930, and farms grew from 994 to 1,626. A gas well near Shamrock in 1923 and the first producing oil well in 1924 began a moderate boom, and by the decade's end the southwest of the county was honeycombed with wells, tank batteries and pipelines, with Magic City and Kellerville as small oil centers. The population nearly tripled, from 5,258 in 1910 to 15,555 in 1930, then fell to 12,411 by 1940.

What the plaque says

Wheeler County Formed from Young and Bexar territories. Created August 21, 1876. Organized April 12, 1879. Named in honor of Royal T. Wheeler (1810-1864). Associate justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, 1844-1858. Chief Justice, 1858-1864. County Seat, Mobeetie, 1879-1906. Wheeler, since.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Mobeetie Jail Museum — 10 mi
  The 1886 stone jail of the Panhandle's first county seat, the buffalo hunters' Hidetown on Sweetwater Creek that ran the courts for fifteen counties before losing its fort, railroad hopes and county seat.
• Tower Station and U-Drop Inn — 15 mi
  Shamrock's 1936 Conoco station and cafe at the corner of Route 66 and US-83, sketched in the dirt with a nail, named by a schoolboy and saved by the town.
• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 23 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 24 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• Custer on the Sweetwater — 3.2 mi
• Temple Lea Houston — 11 mi
• Frank Willis, Sr. — 11 mi
• Fort Elliott Flagpole — 11 mi