Perspectives

In what was becoming an all too common occurrence in the Central Texas boom town, a constable was shot to death in the streets of Mexia on Sep. 23, 1921. Just one month earlier, the Limestone County community was the peaceful home of 3,500. That serenity was shattered on a quiet Sunday in August 1921, when a pair of gushers brought oil and a world of trouble to Mexia. The population soared to an estimated 55,000 as the black gold attracted the usual cast of fortune- seeking characters. For every roustabout who manned the rigs, there was a bootlegger, gambler, thief and prostitute eager to take his hard-earned pay. Bars, brothels and gambling dens operated around-the-clock in brazen defiance of state and federal statutes. Stills concealed in the wooded countryside supplied the river of homemade liquor needed to quench the thirst of the oilfield workers. Appalled by the crime wave, which the police and sheriff lacked the resources and resolve to combat, the original inhabitants appealed directly to the governor. Before deciding on a course of action, Pat Neff sent an undercover agent for a first-hand look. The investigator reported within the week that the situation in Mexia was “hard to believe.” Most mind-boggling of all were two wide-open casinos – the Winter Garden and the Chicken Ranch.