DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the Texas Historical Commission put down on the marker in Turkey, Hall County — and friend, this one's worth pulling over for. Now Turkey, Texas didn't just happen. It was settled in the 1890s, which out in the Panhandle means somebody looked at a whole lot of wind and flat earth and said, I believe I'll make something here.
And make something they did. Come the mid-1920s, Turkey was on a genuine tear — one of those moments when a little town feels like it might just swallow the horizon whole. Part of the secret was location.
Turkey sat right on the path of not one but two of those early automobile roads — the regional Ozark Trail and the coast-to-coast Bankhead Highway. You want people to stop and spend money, you put yourself where the roads already go. Turkey understood that.
And if the automobiles weren't enough, the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway came rolling through, stitching Turkey into the wider world of Panhandle agriculture. By 1926, the city had incorporated. By 1927, it was carrying an estimated 600 souls.
By 1929 — just a couple of years later — it had climbed to around a thousand residents and two whole banks. Two banks. In a town that didn't exist until the 1890s.
That is not slow growth. That is a place running hot. Now here's where the story gets interesting, because behind every booming town in that era there was something flowing through pipes and pumped by hand — gasoline.
Gasoline for the automobiles. Gasoline for the farm equipment. Gasoline was the lifeblood, and the Phillips Petroleum Company knew it.
Phillips had been incorporated up in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, back in 1917. They spent a decade getting their footing, and then in 1927 they made two moves that changed everything. First, they established their first refinery near Borger — that's right here in Texas, not too far away as these plains go.
And then, that same year of 1927, they opened their first gasoline service station, over in Wichita, Kansas. Phillips was on the march. They set their sights on Turkey.
They invested heavily — a railroad loading dock, bulk terminal buildings, a fuel depot, several storage tanks. They were putting down roots. But the crown jewel, the culmination of the whole investment, was a brand new Phillips 66 service station that opened right on Main Street on July 27, 1928.
Their first such station in the entire state of Texas. Now here's a detail that'll stop you: the early Phillips 66 stations were deliberately designed to blend into residential neighborhoods. They didn't want some industrial intrusion scaring off the neighbors.
So they built them to look like homes, comfortable homes, in a style called Tudor Revival. Brick construction. High-pitched roof.
An arched doorway. A front gable. A chimney — and on that chimney, worked right into the masonry, the letter P.
And out front, those Phillips 66 glass half-globes catching the light. That station on Main Street in Turkey served travelers moving along those old highways, it gave people jobs, and it became a gathering place for the community itself. All the things a good filling station was supposed to do.
The building is still there. Virtually intact, the marker says — which out here in the Panhandle wind, after nearly a century, is something close to a miracle. Recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 2019.
First Phillips 66 station in Texas. Turkey, Hall County. July 27, 1928.
Some things deserve to be remembered exactly as they happened, and this is one of them.
What the marker says
The community of Turkey, settled in the 1890s, went through a period of rapid economic growth in the mid-1920s. The city benefited from its location on branches of two early automobile roads: the regional Ozark Trail and the coast-to-coast Bankhead Highway. Turkey was also served by the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway, which connected developing agricultural areas of the Panhandle and South Plains. Turkey incorporated in 1926 and by 1927 had an estimated 600 residents. By 1929, the city had two banks and about 1,000 residents. Along with the arrival of the railroad, the availability of gasoline for automobiles and farm equipment contributed to Turkey’s impressive growth. The Phillips Petroleum Company, incorporated in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1917, established its first refinery near Borger in 1927 and opened its first gasoline service station in Wichita, Kansas, later that same year. Phillips invested heavily in infrastructure in Turkey, with a railroad loading dock, bulk terminal buildings, fuel depot and several storage tanks. The culmination of their investment in Turkey was a new Phillips 66 service station which opened on Main Street on July 27, 1928, their first such facility in Texas. The station offered employment, served as a community gathering place, and provided essential automotive services for travelers and the bustling community. Early Phillips 66 service stations were typically located in residential areas, and their designs attempted to blend in with surrounding homes. The Turkey service station is a virtually intact example of the Tudor Revival style, with brick construction, a high-pitched roof, arched doorway, front gable, chimney with letter “P” and “Phillips 66” glass half-globes. It is an important site in the state’s history of settlement, transportation and architecture. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2019