DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how that official marker tells it, out on the road near Boling in Wharton County. Before the trains came through, this little stretch of Texas went by a different name altogether — Floyd's Lane, they called it. Then came 1900, and the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway arrived, and the place needed something more official-sounding.
The town was named for the Bolling family of Virginia. Now, here's where it gets good. When the citizens sat down to apply for a United States Post Office, somebody's pen slipped — or their spelling didn't quite match their ambition — and Bolling came out Boling.
One L instead of two. And that, friends, is what got stamped onto every piece of mail that ever rolled through there. The name stuck, misspelling and all.
For a while, Boling was a quiet farming town held together by agriculture and the railroad. Population twenty souls in 1920. Twenty.
You could've fit the whole town in a decent-sized parlor. Then 1925 came along, and the Boling dome gave up its secrets — sulphur, oil, and gas, discovered right there beneath the ground. Boom.
That word is not an exaggeration. By 1930 the population had climbed from twenty to four hundred and fifty, and the companies came flocking in so fast that they started naming streets and whole subdivisions after themselves, just to keep track of who was where. The landscape of that town became a kind of map of the rush itself.
And it wasn't a flash in the pan, either. Mineral production held on as the dominant industry in the area for seventy years. Seventy.
From a misspelled post office application to an energy powerhouse — all starting with one missing L.
What the marker says
This area was called Floyd's Lane prior to the advent of the New York, Texas & Mexican Railway in 1900. Named for the Bolling family of Virginia, the town name was misspelled when citizens applied for a U. S. Post Office. The economy was based on farming and the railroad until sulphur, oil, and gas were discovered on the Boling dome in 1925. Boling became a boom town; the population grew from 20 in 1920 to 450 in 1930. Many streets and subdivisions were named for the companies that flocked here. Mineral production was the dominant industry in the area for 70 years.