Books: "Boom Town" By Joe Pappalardo

 

Boom Town: The True Story of the Wickedest Town in Texas

By Joe Pappalardo

St. Martin's Press; 320 pages; plus one 8-page color insert; hardcover, $31.00; E-Book, $14.99; available today, Tuesday, April 21st 

Joe Pappalardo is the author of the critically acclaimed books Four Against The West: The True Saga of a Frontier Family That Reshaped the Nation (our review from November 2024); Inferno: The True Story of a B-17 Gunner's Heroism and the Bloodiest Campaign in Aviation History, Sunflowers: The Secret History, Red Sky Morning, and Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight. He is a freelance journalist, a contributor to Texas Monthly, a writing contributor to National Geographic Magazine, a former senior editor and current contributor to Popular Mechanics, and a former associate editor of Air & Space Smithsonian Magazine.

Boom Town: The True Story of the Wickedest Town in Texas is the new epic from Pappalardo, which can be viewed as a worthy sequel to Four Against the West, in which he established himself as an expert on Texas' star-crossed past.

In Boom Town, Pappalardo examines the panhandle town of Bolger, Texas, founded a century ago, in 1926, after oil was discovered. The town was named after A.P. "Ace" Borger, a shrewd and powerful land investor in Texas and Oklahoma who played a major role in the town's development.

Borger and John R. Miller, his business partner and attorney, purchased a large swath of acreage to create this "town." Miller would soon become the Mayor of Borger.

It didn't take long for the little prairie village to become not just what it was intended for, a haven for oilmen and roughnecks, but also bootleggers due to Prohibition, pimps, and prostitutes, card sharks, drug dealers, and all manner of criminals, run by a crooked city hall.

Pappalardo profiles legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer and his high-profile cases, including when he took down notorious bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, whose story became the stuff of legend.

When their gang of bank robbers arrived in Borger to set up shop with boozing, gambling, and prostitutes, all hell breaks loose. Within two weeks of their arrival, the gang killed three law enforcement officers, and Hamer is called in to bring the heat. His arrival threatens to break the seedy side of this boomtown, that is, if he doesn't die first. 

In addition to Bonnie and Clyde, some of the other villains that make these stories compelling include bootlegger Shine Popejoy and corrupt sheriff "Two-Gun" Dick Herwig. 

While the town had its bad side, it also was a place where hopeful people seeking a chance to make it big arrived with their dreams, including dance hall maven Mattie Castleberry and professional wrestler Dutch Betke.

Pappalardo writes in this excerpt of one of the first shows of force against the town's corruption: February 2, 1927 Austin, Texas

Frank Hamer shifts his weight between his feet and stares at the door of Room 924, willing it to open. It's been an hour since their inside man entered the Stephen Austin Hotel, carrying money to bribe a pair of legislators. When he comes out, Hamer and fellow Texas Ranger Captain Tom Hickman will go in to make two sensational arrests.

Hamer is six foot three and a solid 230 pounds, every ounce of which he can feel on his weary feet. This girth includes plenty of muscle, a thick build earned by long years of ranching, riding, scouting, and fighting. His legs are especially strong, and other Rangers speak of his ability to use a mule kick to knock down opponents. Hamer says he learned the move fighting bullies as a kid. For all this bulk, he still moves "with the ability of a dancing master," as his friend William Sterling put it. His thick neck, wrapped with a wide tie, seamlessly melds with the back of his head.

Thomas Rufus Hickman is a walking example of what life in the saddle does to the human body. his upper half is that of a slim man, but his legs belong to someone much thicker. He's a business college graduate - Gainesville, class of 1907 - who found himself deputy sheriff in Cooke County by 1910 and a Texas Ranger private by 1919. Hickman's also an accomplished rodeo man, serving as judge of the first rodeo in England in 1924 and the first held in Madison Square Garden, just last year. Hickman's three inches shorter than Hamer, with mild brown hair that makes his dark eyebrows seem even bushier than they are. He's got a small mouth but a wide smile, showing a row of small, straight teeth. His genial manner sometimes makes it hard to remember how capable Hickman is as lawman - and just last year he was part of a shoot-out that cut down two bank robbers in Clarkesville. It was Hickman's first and only fatal shooting, whereas Hamer has been involved in dozens during his career.

The pair of Rangers are on the hunt again, this time for a different kind of prey - crooked politicians. But this is not the way either man expected this Wednesday to unfold.

Hamer and Hickman were meeting in the office of the adjutant general in the capitol earlier that day when an optometrist named W.W. Chamberlain walked in and identified himself as the legislative chairman of the Texas Optometrist's Association. And added that he was going to bribe a pair of state representatives by the end of the day.

As the Rangers listened, they came to understand how thoroughly Chamberlain had set up the statehouse politicians. Last week Chamberlain met with Representative F.A. Dale, from Bonham, and Representative H.H. Moore of Cooper with concerns over a new bill charging brick-and-mortar optometrists the same fee applied to transient ones. Dale soliticited a payoff, noting that the other side had agreed to an amount and that Chamberlain would have to beat their bribe. Chamberlain conferred with his association's leadership. They gave him the money, and with it a mission to burn the legislators for graft. Chamberlain is now inside a room of the Stephen Austin Hotel, with $1,000 cash in small denominations, each bill number officially recorded by a bank in Oklahoma.

Hamer is impressed with the optometrist's thoroughness. All he and Hickman have to do is tag along, wait for the money to exchange hands, and then arrest both legislators while they are in possession of the marked bills. It's a tempting offer, since arrests like these could deliver the Texas governor an early-term win of some significance. The corruption of the previous regime of Miriam "Ma" Ferguson was legendary, and combating it is a central plank of the new administration of Dan Moody.