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This Week in Texas History: The down side of an oil boom
Columns
Bartee Haile, Texas History on September 21, 2022
This Week in Texas History: The down side of an oil boom

By Bartee Haile

In what was becoming an all too common occurrence in the Central Texas boom town, a constable was shot to death in the streets of Mexia on Sep. 23, 1921.

Just one month earlier, the Limestone County community was the peaceful home of 3,500.  That serenity was shattered on a quiet Sunday in August 1921, when a pair of gushers brought oil and a world of trouble to Mexia.

The population soared to an estimated 55,000 as the black gold attracted the usual cast of fortune-seeking charact...

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