DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. About a mile and a quarter north of where you're standing right now, there's nothing left — not a single building. But pull your mind back to around 1919, and you'd have found yourself in a place called Newtown, or Thrift, rising up fast out of the northwestern extension of the Burkburnett Oil Field.
Oil towns have a way of appearing almost overnight, and Thrift was no different. Mostly a tent city — canvas walls, dirt floors, the smell of crude in the air — but here's the thing that gave it a kind of respectability: a bank. The only bank in the area at that time.
In a tent town, that is something. That is a statement. That says, we intend to stay.
Well. The land had other ideas. Thrift suffered many fires — not one, not two, but many.
And then came 1920. Lightning struck an oil tank. Two people died.
Much of the town was wiped out, just like that. You think about that for a second — a bolt out of the sky, one tank, and a community fighting to exist suddenly has to fight even harder. They pressed on, though.
Thrift's Post Office opened in 1925, which in the life of a boomtown is a kind of milestone — it means somebody official believes you're real enough to receive mail. But by 1929, the population had fallen to thirty souls. Thirty.
And yet a bank, a church, a school, and a store were still there, still serving the folks out at the oil field pump stations. Places have a stubborn streak sometimes. Thrift held on as long as it could.
But eventually, every last building went. Gone. The town called Newtown, the town called Thrift, is now just a patch of Texas ground a mile and a quarter up the road — and this marker, standing right here, doing the remembering for it.
What the marker says
(Ghost Townsite, 1.25 miles north) "Newtown", or "Thrift", originated about 1919 in the northwestern extension of the Burkburnett Oil Field. Early in its existence it gained prestige by the founding of a bank--the only one in the area at that time. Mostly a tent city, Thrift suffered many fires. One of these, started by lightning striking an oil tank in 1920, caused two deaths and wiped out much of the town. Thrift's Post Office opened in 1925. After the population shrank to 30 in 1929, the bank, a church, school, and store served people living at oil field pump stations; but all of Thrift's buildings are now gone. (1977, 2002)