Phillips Blackhawks: Photos Places Page 3

	'Boomtown', Thomas Hart Benton, Borger, Texas Boomtown is Benton’s first Regionalist (or American Scene) masterpiece and the result of a 1926 summer sketching trip which took him to Borger, Texas. Early in 1926, oil was discovered in the Panhandle of Texas; real estate promoter “Ace” Borger purchased land and created the town whose population soared from zero to 30,000 within days!
Borger Birthday Parade, Borger TX, 1930 Photo from: http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/hutchinson/history/baird/parade3.jpg	Benton wrote of Borger: Out on the open plain beyond the town a great thick column of black smoke rose as in a volcanic eruption from the earth to the middle of the sky. There was a carbon mill out there that burnt thousands of cubic feet of gas every minute, a great, wasteful, extravagant burning of resources for momentary profit. All the mighty anarchic carelessness of our country was revealed in Borger. But it was revealed with a breadth, with an expansive grandeur, that was as effective emotionally as are the tremendous spatial reaches of the plains country where the town was set. One did not get the feeling, in spite of the rough shacks and dirty tents in which the people lived, of that narrow cruelty and bitter misery that hovers around eastern industrial centers. There was a belief, written in men’s faces, that all would find a share in the gifts of this mushroom town…..Borger on the boom was a big party….where capital…joined hands with everybody in a great democratic dance. Arthur Strawn, “An American Epic” Outlook & Independent March 26, 1930 http://mag.rochester.edu/plugins/acrobat/teachers/pastInservices/Boomtown_Pappas.pdf

United Carbon Plant in background behind Mr. & Mrs. O.L. Goins. 1948	Carbon Black Plant c. 1955 Photo by Jack Moon; contributed by Jerry Moon
For many of us growing up in Phillips prior to scrubbers being installed, carbon black was a normal part of our daily environment. Decisions were made about hanging out laundry depending on the day's wind direction because carbon black could ruin the laundry. Kids who played outside a lot had black pores in their legs. Herefords grazing near the carbon black plants were not 'white face' but were dark gray or black -- just like the grass they ate, the fences, and the nearby mesquite. Carbon black is produced from the incomplete combustion of "sour" gas-natural gas. In 1931 thirty-one plants in Texas produced 210,878,000 pounds of carbon black, or 75 percent of the nation's output. In 1937 forty Texas plants, thirty-three of them in the Panhandle, produced 82 percent of the nation's carbon black; the Panhandle plants alone yielded 405,247,000 pounds. Rubber & plastics companies use carbon black as a reinforcing filler in tires and other products; smaller quantities are used as pigments in ink and paint.	Carbon Black Plant 2008


6 East Street, Sunset Heights moves to Milner Road between Borger and Fritch 1989 Photo by Jack Moon; contributed by Jerry Moon	Phillips House, Borger TX 2008

Phillips House, Borger TX 2008	Phillips House, Borger TX 2008

Phillips House, Borger TX 2008	Phillips House, Borger TX 2008

Hutchinson County Library, Borger TX 1950's	North Plains Hospital, Borger TX 1950's

Hutchinson County Historical Museum, Borger TX

Hutchinson County Historical Museum, Borger TX 2008	Hutchinson County Historical Museum, Borger TX 2008

Hutchinson County Historical Museum, Borger TX 2008	Nu-Way Cafe, Borger TX 2007 Photo courtesy of Martha K. Smith

Morley Theater, Borger TX 2008	Mesquite & Prickly Pear Cactus, Borger TX 2008