County of city: Hutchinson County
Location of county: South-Central in county; crossroads of TX-136 & TX-152
County if central in the Panhandle
City hall location: 600 N. Main St., Borger
Elevation: 3,077 ft (938 m)
Population: 13,024 (2013)
The Person:
BORGER, ASA PHILLIP (1888–1934). Asa Phillip (Ace) Borger, town builder, was born to Phillip and Minnie Ann (West) Borger on April 12, 1888, on the family farm near Carthage, Missouri. His father, a veterinarian, died when Ace was six, and the Borger children were raised by their mother and two grandmothers. Borger attended school in Carthage and graduated from business college. Around 1907 he married a classmate, Elizabeth Willoughby. The couple spent their first years in a rented farmhouse near Carthage, where Borger opened a lumberyard; they had three children.
"Borger began his career as a town promoter when World War I broke out in Europe. In 1915 he and his younger brother Lester Andrew (Pete) sold real estate in the mining town of Picher, Oklahoma, in the center of valuable lead and zinc deposits. Much lead was produced from Picher for the war effort. In 1917 the Borgers, in company with the noted wildcatter Tom Slick, laid out the oil town of Slick near Bristow, Oklahoma. At each town the Borgers and their associates built hotels, filling stations, and lumberyards, sold real estate, and pushed for the building of railroad lines to the sites. In 1922 they successfully launched Cromwell, Oklahoma, as a boomtown. Though Borger and his family maintained a home for a time in each of these towns, he continued to use Carthage as his main base.
"Borger became interested in the discovery of the Panhandle oilfield. Early in 1926, after personally checking out the reports, he purchased 240 acres from rancher John Frank Weatherly at fifty dollars an acre. He next obtained a grant from Texas secretary of state Emma Grigsby Meharg to organize the Borger Townsite Company, with capital stock of $10,000 divided into 100 shares of $100 each. In addition to Borger himself, the company's stockholders included C. C. Horton of the Gulf Oil Company and John R. Miller, an old friend from Oklahoma boom days who became the new town's first mayor. The company proceeded to lay out the town and opened the sale of lots on March 8, 1926. By the end of that first day, it had grossed between $60,000 and $100,000, and after six months Borger sold out completely, for more than a million dollars.
"He established a lumberyard in the town named for him and opened its first bank. Often he took out full-page ads in area papers promoting settlement in Borger and other oil-rich sites throughout West Texas and eastern New Mexico in which he had bought an interest. He also owned a string of Panhandle wheat elevators and 19,000 acres of farmland in Hansford County. In 1927 Ace and Pete Borger, in association with Albert S. Stinnett, established the towns of Stinnett and Gruver and were influential in making Stinnett the Hutchinson county seat. In 1929 Borger built a spacious two-story family home, the first brick residence in Borger. From the start he had set aside building sites for churches and schools. His wife, Elizabeth, became active in community affairs; her love for beauty and culture was reflected in the antiques with which she decorated their home. Visiting dignitaries were lavishly entertained there.
"Borger's overt generosity with friends and acquaintances caused hard feelings among certain of the town's populace, however, particularly Arthur Huey, the Hutchinson county treasurer. Huey's dislike for Borger intensified after the Borger State Bank, which Borger had established in June 1930 with himself as president and his son Phillip as vice president, failed, causing a minor panic among local businessmen and small depositors. The elder Borger was later convicted of receiving deposits in the insolvent bank and assessed a two-year prison term, a judgment that he appealed. Meanwhile, Huey was jailed for embezzlement and reportedly asked Borger to help bail him out. When Borger refused, Huey made threats against his life. On August 31, 1934, Borger was getting his mail at the city post office when, according to witnesses, Huey walked in with a Colt .45, shouted obscenities, and shot him five times. Huey then took Borger's own .44 and fired four more shots with it. Lloyd Duncan, farm boss for the Magnolia Petroleum Company, was severely wounded by the shots and died five days later. At his trial, which was held in Canadian, Huey claimed that he had shot in self-defense, arguing that Borger was gunning for him. The jury believed him and acquitted him. Three years later, however, he was sent to the state penitentiary for theft of county funds. Funeral services for Ace Borger were held in Borger, and his body was shipped back to Missouri for burial in the family plot at Carthage.
"Borger's sons, Phillip and Jack, left the area soon after their father's death. However, their sister, Helen, remained and occupied the brick house with her husband, Fritz Thompson. Ace Borger's dream house, now a Texas historical landmark, has remained a family treasure." ~ Texas On Line
The Place:
"Borger, at the junction of State highways 136, 152, and 207, in south central Hutchinson County, was established by and named for A. P. (Ace) Borger, who was reputed throughout Oklahoma and Texas to be a shrewd town promoter. In March 1926, after the discovery of oil in the vicinity, Borger and his partner, attorney John R. Miller, purchased a 240-acre townsite near the Canadian River in the southern part of the county. Within ninety days of its founding, sensational advertising and the lure of "black gold" brought over 45,000 men and women to the new boomtown. In October the charter incorporating the city of Borger was adopted, and Miller was elected mayor. By that time the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway had completed a spur line to Borger, a post office had opened, and a school district had been established. J. D. (Big Heart) Williams set up the first hamburger stand in Borger on the three-mile-long Main Street, where a hotel and a jail had also been erected. Telephone service and steam-generated electricity were available by the end of 1926. Before wells were drilled, drinking water was provided in tank wagons. The ranchers John R. Weatherly and James A. Whittenburg, hoping to cash in on the boom, established two rival townsites, Isom and Dixon Creek, next to that of Borger. Later these were incorporated into the Borger city limits, as was the oil camp of Signal Hill to the northeast. In November 1927 a fire destroyed the Dixon Creek Oil Company refinery, causing more than $60,000 worth of damage. One noted visitor to Borger during this time was the artist Thomas Hart Benton, whose painting Boom Town depicts his impression of Borger's Main Street.
"Within a matter of months, oilmen, prospectors, roughnecks, panhandlers, fortune seekers, card sharks, bootleggers, prostitutes, and dope peddlers descended on Borger. "Booger Town," as it was nicknamed, became a refuge for criminals and fugitives from the law. Before long the town government was firmly in the hands of an organized crime syndicate led by Mayor Miller's shady associate, "Two-Gun Dick" Herwig. The center of this vice was Dixon (now Tenth) Street, notorious for its brothels, dance halls, gambling dens, slot machines, and speakeasies. Murder and robbery became commonplace. Illegal moonshine stills and home breweries flourished with the blessings of Herwig and his henchmen, including W J. (Shine) Popejoy, the king of the Texas bootleggers. Acting on petitions and investigative reports, in the spring of 1927 Governor Daniel J. Moody sent a detachment of Texas Rangers under captains Francis Augustus Hamer and Thomas R. Hickman to remedy the situation. Although the rangers proved a stabilizing force and compelled many undesirables to leave town, Borger's wave of crime and violence continued intermittently into the 1930s and climaxed with the murder of District Attorney John A. Holmes by an unknown assassin on September 18, 1929. This episode prompted Moody to impose martial law for a month and send state troops to help local authorities rid the town of the lawless element. This goal was eventually achieved, but not before Ace Borger was shot to death by his longtime enemy Arthur Huey on August 31, 1934.
Borger remains an important shipping point for agricultural produce as well as for the petroleum products manufactured there. The community supports eight schools, fifty churches, two banks, a radio stations, twenty-four city parks, a library, a hospital, and Frank Phillips College, a junior college. The city's newspaper, the Borger News-Herald (formerly the Hutchinson County Herald), has been in business since 1926. The Hutchinson County Museum, opened in 1977, houses artifacts of the county's pioneer past. Borger is especially noted for its scale models of the buildings at Adobe Walls at the time of the 1874 battle. The annual World's Largest Fish Fry is held in Borger each June." ~ City of Borger