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NAMED
FOR GEORGE B McCAMEY
POPULATION
1805 in 2000
MCCAMEY,
TEXAS is situated
at the intersection of U.S.
Highways 67 and 385, five miles
east of the Pecos River in
southwestern Upton County.
McCamey was developed almost
overnight as a result of the
discovery of oil nearby. In
September 1925 wildcatter George
B. McCamey struck oil with Baker
Well #1.
The day after the well
came in, the original townsite
company was organized by a
Corpus Christi real estate firm,
Burleson and Johns, Mr.
Lon McKinney, Mr. Taylor
Emerson, Mr. A. W. Carruthers,
and a man named Brooks. The oil
discovery brought 700 hopeful
people to the area and firmly
established the new town.
Situated on the Kansas City,
Mexico & Orient Railroad,
McCamey quickly grew. George
Port, land agent for the
railroad, decided to name the
town after George McCamey
because of his role in the
population of the area.
By 1926 seven major oil
companies had leases around
McCamey. A post office was
established on March 5, 1926,
and the town was incorporated on
December 27 of the same year.
Within six months a dusty
tent-and-frame city rose up and
was populated by 10,000 people!
Soon thereafter, the Tri-County
Record, the town's first
newspaper, was founded by Mr. W.
D. Riser. The early years in
McCamey were colorful, filled
with the typical boomtown
problems of disorder and
lawlessness associated with such
rapid growth.
McCamey had one of the first
refineries in West Texas,
operated by Humble Oil Company
from 1927 until 1932. In 1928
the Shell Oil Company
unsuccessfully tried to build a
mammoth storage reservoir to
hold the surplus oil until
pipelines to Houston refineries
could be constructed. The huge
earthen tank had concrete liners
designed to hold a million
barrels of oil, but the weight
of the crude oil was too great
for the underlying limestone.
The tanks cracked and began to
leak and no solution could be
found, so the project was
abandoned in 1929.
In 1927 the McCamey
Independent School District was
established. A high school and
an elementary school building
were completed by 1930. By 1932
the community had declined
considerably in population due
to the Great Depression, oil
discoveries in East Texas, and
changes in oil production in the
West Texas fields. By 1940 the
population had dropped to 2,600
but the town has since remained
a strong part of West Texas
industry.
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