Bobcat Hills

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. Way out in Upton County, there's a stretch of hills that carries a name it earned fair and square, back in 1919. A University of Texas geology team came through, mapping the resources of the county, doing the careful, methodical work that geologists do.

And then, somewhere out among those cretaceous formations, they found something they weren't exactly penciling into the survey report. Dens. Lynx dens.

Bobcat dens, right there in the hills. So the hills got a name: Bobcat Hills. Now the geology itself is no small thing.

These hills are cretaceous formations, part of an uplift in the southern Permian Basin, and that uplift, the marker makes this connection plain, is associated with the oil fields of Upton County. So the same ancient forces that pushed rock toward the sky and gave a bunch of bobcats a fine place to set up housekeeping also helped lay the groundwork for one of the most oil-rich stretches of West Texas you'll ever drive through. That geology team came out looking for resources, and resources, it turned out, were exactly what was there.

They just had to share the discovery with a few cats who got there first.

What the marker says

Named for dens of lynx (bobcats) found her 1919 by a University of Texas geology team mapping the resources of the county. These hills, cretaceous formations, are part of an uplift in the southern Permian Basin. Associated with this uplift are the oil fields of the county. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967,