Ace Borger Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rolling through Hutchinson County now, and the name on the water tower, the name on the street signs, the name everybody just takes for granted, that name belongs to one man. Asa P.

Borger. Folks called him Ace. Born in Missouri in 1888, Ace Borger was the kind of fellow who didn't just move to a place.

He built the place. He'd already established other cities in Texas and Oklahoma before he ever set eyes on this particular patch of Texas Panhandle ground. Then came 1926, and Ace platted a new townsite right here.

What sprung up around it was, to put it charitably, rowdy. Oil towns have a way of being that. Roughnecks and wildcatters and every manner of opportunist poured in, and for a while it was the kind of town that kept the Texas Rangers busy.

But Ace Borger didn't just put his name on a map and walk away. He helped transform that rowdy oil town into something stable, something that would last. And to prove he meant to stay, he and his wife Elizabeth, also born in 1888, built themselves a home.

Not a modest little frame house, either. In 1928 and 1929, they built a two-story brick residence, the first brick home in the whole city. Think about that for a second.

The man who founded the town lived in the first brick house in the town. That house later became home to their daughter and son-in-law, Helen and Fritz Thompson, and then to their grandson, David W. Thompson.

Three generations, same walls, same brick. Elizabeth passed in 1933. Ace followed in 1934.

But that house on the hill, or wherever it stands on whatever street you're picturing, it's still there. Brick outlasts the booms. That's kind of the whole story, right there.

What the marker says

The founder of Borger, Missouri-born Asa P. ("Ace") Borger (1888-1934), established other cities in Texas and Oklahoma before he platted this townsite in 1926 and helped transform a rowdy oil town into a stable community. In 1928-29 he and his wife Elizabeth (1888-1933) built this two-story home, the first brick residence in Borger. It was later occupied by the families of their daughter and son-in-law, Helen and Fritz Thompson, and of their grandson, David W. Thompson. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976