DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Somewhere out here in Andrews County, the land looks like it's keeping a secret — and for a long time, it was. Then came 1941.
The Fullerton Oil Company of California drove a drill into the earth near this very site, and the ground gave up what it had been hiding. Oil. And once word got out, well, this corner of West Texas was never the same.
By 1945 — just four years later — more than a hundred drilling rigs were running out here. A hundred. You stand in this quiet now and try to picture that.
The noise alone must've been something. All those rigs meant all those workers, and all those workers needed somewhere to live, somewhere to eat, somewhere to be. So a town rose up out of the caliche and the mesquite.
They called it Fullerton, after the oil company that started it all, and they put it about a mile north of here. Now Fullerton wasn't roughnecking it with nothing — this place had two churches, two cafes, two filling stations, a grocery store, a delicatessen, a beauty shop, and an Andrews telephone exchange. Children caught buses to school down in Andrews, sixteen miles to the southeast.
And by the time World War II wound down, Fullerton had grown into something you'd have to call a genuine boom town. Supply stores, oil field service companies, welding shops, an electric plant — the whole outfit. Then 1948 rolls around and the U.S. post office gets established here, and with it comes a name change.
Fullerton becomes Frankel City. Just like that, a new name on a West Texas map. At its peak, that post office was serving as many as five hundred area families.
Five hundred. That's a community. That's a real place with real people putting down roots in the sand.
But here's where the story turns, the way boom town stories always do. By 1976, most of the oil had been pulled from the ground. Workers were laid off.
Others were transferred somewhere else entirely. And one by one, the businesses closed. The post office shut its doors.
The people left. Frankel City went quiet. What remains here today is the old Prairie Schooner Cafe — moved from its original location to this spot — sitting by itself like a man who missed the last bus out.
The marker calls Frankel City a ghost town, but it also calls it an important part of West Texas history, and I'll tell you, both of those things are true at the same time. That's the part that gets you. A hundred rigs, five hundred families, two churches, two cafes — and now one lonesome cafe where a whole town used to breathe.
What the marker says
In 1941 the Fullerton Oil Company of California struck oil near this site, and by 1945 more than 100 drilling rigs were in operation. The discovery brought great numbers of workers into the area, resulting in the establishment of the town of Fullerton. Located approximately one mile north, Fullerton provided newcomers with two churches, two cafes, two filling stations, a grocery store, delicatessen, beauty shop, and Andrews telephone exchange. Buses transported children to and from school in Andrews (16 miles SE). By the end of World War II, the boom town also boasted supply stores, oil field service companies, welding shops, and an electric plant. Fullerton's name was changed to Frankel City when the U.S. post office was established in 1948. At one time the post office served as many as 500 area families. By 1976, however, most of the oil had been taken from the ground, and workers in the field were laid off or transferred to other jobs. The town was abandoned as the post office and other businesses closed. The old Prairie Schooner Cafe, moved to this site from its original location, is all that is left of Frankel City. The ghost town, however, remains an important part of West Texas history. (1984)