Ira

Duane's take

The official marker for Ira, out in Scurry County, tells it like this, and I'm just here to pass it along. Now, every town's got an origin, and Ira's starts with a man named Ira Green. He had himself a crossroads store near this very site, and that crossroads became something people held onto.

But before there were real towns, before there were proper walls and floors and rooftops to speak of, the first folks who called this place home dug in. Literally. Half-dugouts, they were called.

Cellars, basically, with windows set just above ground level. You'd be living half in the earth itself. Hot Texas summers couldn't touch you quite the same way, and those winters out on the plains had to work a little harder to find you.

The first school here was the same kind of arrangement. Children learning their letters with the ground for walls and the sky just barely peeking in through those windows. In 1896, a post office was established, which is the kind of thing that tells you a community means business.

You don't get a post office unless people intend to stay. Then came 1899, and that was the year things really moved. Block 97 opened to settlers, and the area became an active farm and ranch community.

You can almost hear it, the wagons coming in, the land getting carved up and claimed, cattle and crops taking root where there'd been open prairie. And then, 1923. Oil production began.

That's the part where Ira's story takes a turn that a lot of West Texas towns would recognize. Farms and ranches don't change much from season to season, but oil changes everything. Ira Green put his name on a crossroads, and that crossroads became a town that went from half-underground to punching holes in the earth for an entirely different reason.

What the marker says

Named for Ira Green, who had a crossroads store near this site. First homes and school were half-dugouts (cellars with windows set above ground level). Post office established 1896. On opening of block 97 to settlers, 1899, area became active farm and ranch community. Oil production since 1923. (1966)