Bridgetown

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Picture the year 1919. The northwest extension of the Burkburnett oil field has just opened up, and prospectors are thronging this stretch of north Texas like moths to a bonfire.

Out at the Texas end of a brand-new, mile-long Red River toll bridge — built specifically for oil field traffic — a town appears. Just appears. They call it Bridgetown.

Now, out of twelve communities that mushroomed in this area during the rivalry between major oil companies and independent producers, Bridgetown becomes the largest. The wealthiest. Lease values that started at ten dollars an acre climb all the way to twenty thousand dollars an acre.

Let that settle for a moment. Ten dollars to twenty thousand. This is a place where fortunes are being made on the smell of possibility alone.

The town itself is a city of tents and shanties, with a few substantial structures thrown in for good measure. It's got a long main street, and here's the detail I love — a Mission church anchoring one end and a saloon holding down the other. Make of that what you will.

Its post office opens on July 15, 1920, which is about as official as a boomtown gets. And the population? Well, nobody could quite agree.

Estimates in the early 1920s put it somewhere between 3,500 and 10,000 people. That's quite a spread, but when a place is growin that fast, you can forgive the counters for losin track. Then comes the legal trouble — and this is where things get genuinely strange.

Litigation over riverbed oil rights gets so tangled that the U.S. Supreme Court stations a receiver right there in town to oversee things. His name is Frederick A.

Delano. And if that last name rings a bell, it should — Frederick A. Delano is the uncle of a future president of the United States, Franklin D.

Roosevelt. With help from Texas Rangers, Delano and other leaders set about invoking law and order in a place that had been running pretty loose. They manage it.

But the earth underneath Bridgetown has other plans. In a few years, oil yields diminish. And when the oil goes, everything it bought goes with it — the jail, the theaters, the dance halls, the gambling houses, all of it vanishes.

By 1929, only a hundred inhabitants remain. By 1931, the bridge is down. The post office closes in 1935.

And after that, the site of what had been the makeshift oil capital of the region reverts — quietly, without ceremony — to range and agricultural uses. The tents folded. The saloon went dark.

The church fell silent. And the Red River just kept on rollin, like it always had.

What the marker says

When the northwest extension of the Burkburnett oil field opened in 1919, prospectors thronged this area. Bridgetown sprang up at the Texas end of a mile-long Red River toll bridge built for oil field traffic. It became the largest and wealthiest of 12 communities that mushroomed in this area during rivalry among major oil companies and independent producers. Lease values rose from $10 to $20,000 an acre. A city of tents, shanties and a few substantial structures, Bridgetown had a long main street with a Mission church at one end and a saloon at the other. Its post office opened July 15, 1920. The population in the early 1920s was estimated at 3,500 to 10,000. Litigation over riverbed oil rights caused the U.S. Supreme Court to station a receiver in the town. He was Frederick A. Delano, uncle of future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. With aid from Texas Rangers, Delano and other leaders invoked law and order. In a few years oil yields diminished, and the jail, theaters, dance halls, and gambling houses vanished. By 1929 only 100 inhabitants remained. By 1931 the bridge was down, the post office closed in 1935. Afterward the site of the makeshift oil "capital" reverted to range and agricultural uses. (1977)