Boomtown: The True Story of the Wickedest Town in Texas
Joe Pappalardo, a journalist who has written nonfiction books on spaceflight, sunflowers, and the Texas Rangers of Company F, opens Boomtown with an author’s note admitting to feeling angsty about recreating conversations for this true story. Instead of using creative nonfiction techniques, he narrates the history of Borger and sister town, Stinnett, newspaper-style: piecemeal, out of sequence, with a dizzying number of characters, loads of footnoted backstory, but never lingering long even on the juiciest of scenes.
Luckily, the story rises above his reluctance. Borger, or Boomtown (after the Thomas Hart Benton painting), sprung up overnight after oil was found in 1926. The rigs were next to homes which were next to dance halls, drugstore speakeasies, gambling dens, crude outhouses, and brothels. Model Ts parked three deep all along Main Street. Ace Borger, town founder, and two other men in charge collected their profits and did their best to keep order while keeping real law out. Eventually, Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (who later caught Bonnie and Clyde) had to come in and deal with a group of bank robbers that killed three lawmen. A town so “wicked” that martial law had to be imposed—twice!
