Name: Breckenridge, Texas
Address: Breckenridge, TX

Breckenridge, TX RoadyGoat

Breckenridge. The name itself carries a weight, doesn't it? It's a name etched in the history of this part of Texas, a place where the quiet hum of agriculture meets the legacy of the oil boom.

Breckenridge, TX RoadyGoat

Breckenridge is a town built on black gold, no doubt about it. You can feel it in the very ground under your feet. Before the oil boom that started around 1916, and really took off in the twenties, this was just another quiet spot in the Brazos River watershed, scratching out a living from agriculture. Then, suddenly, the population exploded. Fortunes were made seemingly overnight. That boom changed everything, etching a certain kind of independent spirit into the town’s DNA. Even though the boom days aren't what they used to be, that spirit remains. Agriculture and the oil industry are still the backbone here. But what keeps people here, what makes Breckenridge different, is that sense of community, that small-town pride you just don't find everywhere. It’s in the stands at a Friday night football game when the Buckaroos are battling Graham, and it’s in the way neighbors still look out for one another. Maybe it’s the oil, maybe it's the land, or maybe it’s just the distance from the roar of the city, but something special took root here, and it's still growing.

Breckenridge, TX RoadyGoat

Breckenridge, Texas, carries its history close, like the scent of dry earth after a summer rain. You can feel it in the quiet pride of the town, a legacy etched by booms and busts and the enduring spirit of its people. Named for John C. Breckinridge back in '62 and formally incorporated in '76, it was the discovery of oil in 1916 that truly set the town alight. Fortunes were made and lost, and the population exploded, transforming Breckenridge into a bustling hub seemingly overnight. The echoes of those heady days still linger, even though things have settled into a more familiar rhythm. Agriculture remains a cornerstone, of course, as it always has, alongside the enduring presence of the oil industry. The land here, part of the Brazos River watershed, sustains both. And in the autumn, the air crackles with the energy of the Buckaroos facing off against Graham – a rivalry that runs deep. Even local legends, like the tale of a buried stagecoach laden with gold, hint at the dramatic past. It's a story of resilience, this place, a Texas story played out on a smaller stage, where the Dallas Cowboys winning Super Bowl XXX in '96 felt like a victory for the whole community.

Clemons, Basil Edwin

1903

Basil Edwin Clemons, photographer, the firstborn of seventeen children of Lemuel Joseph and Sarah Alice (Clemmons) Clemmons was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, on July 22, 1887. His parents were cousins. He attended grammar school in Alabama until his father, a farmer, moved the family to Ridgeway, Texas. At age sixteen, in 1903, Basil left Texas and journeyed to California. He was in San Francisco in 1906, when that city experienced its devastating earthquake. Clemons, who was well-read, became a self-taught photographer in Hollywood at the beginning of the movie era. Later, he trooped with the Tom Mix Wild West Show. In 1909 he returned to East Texas to visit his family before departing for Alaska, where he recorded the growth surrounding the gold discoveries in the Yukon River area. He introduced motion pictures to Alaskan residents by making and developing the first movies shown there. Clemons was responsible for bringing the first airplane into the snowy region and then preserved the sights of the frozen land with the first aerial photographs taken in Alaska. He was snow-blinded, however, and his eyesight was affected for the rest of his life. In Alaska Clemons became a Methodist. He later confided to his mother that he was a "sprinkled Methodist" because immersion in ice water would have frozen him to death. He joined the United States Army and trained at Fort Liscom, Alaska. In 1918 he was discharged as a private in the Ninth Company, 166th Depot Brigade. He eventually moved to Seattle, Washington, where he opened a photography studio. In 1919, while traveling with a circus, he returned to Texas. There he received word that his studio had burned, but instead of returning to Seattle he headed west to Breckenridge. He chronicled on film every aspect of life in the small town as it boomed from oil production in 1920. When the oilfields declined, he remained and continued to photograph everyday happenings. His photographs included not only oil-derrick scenes, weddings, downtown display windows, rodeos, parades, and portraits of prominent citizens, but also funeral processions, Ku Klux Klan rallies, lakeside picnics, and the entire public school student body. His developing studio was his unusual home, an iron-wheeled gypsy wagon, ten feet long and six feet wide, which had been a cookshack used on a ranch. To develop photographs, he never measured the chemicals poured from jars. By tasting the finger he used to stir the mixture, he determined the correct proportions. He developed black-and-white and sepia-toned photographs. He also produced pictures on fabric and did hand-colored tinted prints. His skill was so perfected that he formulated a process for color developing before the Eastman Kodak Company. When he received a letter from Kodak in 1936, offering a fabulous amount, plus royalties, for his technique, Clemons had his teen-aged helper, Frank Pellizzari, Jr., type a refusal to the offer with the remark that the Kodak chemists should "figure it out for themselves." The trademark of his work was marking negatives with a fine pen and India ink so that the developed prints bore the subject label, date, and his signature in white lettering. Clemons, a lifelong bachelor, believed in a simplified approach to living. As an eccentric, he did not follow conventional standards in his choice of habitat, dress, or diet. He wore jodhpurs and knee-high laced boots and traveled to photography sites in a stripped-down Model-T Ford. He declined social invitations, yet he always welcomed company and generously offered to serve visitors mulligan stew and bannock, a pancake-thin bread. From ground mesquite beans he made a weak tea-like beverage. At Thanksgiving he invited the entire community to share a harvest feast from his vast garden. His political affiliation is unknown. He belonged to both the American Legion and the Moose Lodge. In the Yukon he had served as secretary of the Alaska Kennel Club, similar to a chamber of commerce.

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Walker, Breckenridge Stephens

1920

Breckenridge Stephens Walker, rancher, banker, and oilman, was born on November 19, 1877. He was the son of Edward Lee and Molena [Malinda or Malena] Jane (Yanc[e]y) Walker and was born in newly-organized Stephens County, Texas. His first and middle names were derived from the town and county in which he was born. Walker's father was a native of Kentucky and came to Texas as a young boy with his mother. E. L. Walker worked as a cowboy, became an independent cattleman and merchant, and in 1876 was elected county judge in Stephens County's first election. Breckenridge S. Walker's early life on the West Texas frontier was filled with hard work that left little time for education. As a young boy, he did general teaming with a pair of scraggly "Western pony mules" and then opened a livery with his older brother, B. B. Walker. The brothers then operated a stage line between Breckenridge and Ranger. During these runs, Walker developed a romantic relationship with his future wife, Cora Alice Davis (1877-1959), and drove the stage a block or two out of his way to ride past her house. For their next business venture, the brothers purchased a hardware store from N. S. Greenwood and built it into the largest such store in Breckenridge. However, Walker's goal was to be a banker. In 1904 he became cashier of the First National Bank of Breckenridge. Three years later, he purchased a controlling interest in the bank and became its president. He bought vast amounts of land on which he raised cattle. His land and his entrepreneurial skills proved to be valuable assets when Stephens County began to emerge as an important oil producing region. In late 1916 Walker, along with T. B. Yarbrough of Fort Worth and Joe J. Perkins of Wichita Falls, incorporated the Stephens County Oil Company of Fort Worth. By 1917 Walker had sold his cattle in order to devote his energy to the oilfields. "Although the cattle are flourishing," he said, "conditions are splendid for their growth, oil looks mighty good to me." That same year, he formed the Walker-Caldwell Oil Company with Judge Clifton Mott Caldwell , also of Breckenridge. With the success of this company and other oil interests, Walker and Caldwell became very wealthy men. They built Breckenridge's first water system, established a daily newspaper, and were instrumental in the construction of several modern commercial buildings and churches in the community. Breckenridge remained a small town of approximately 1,500 residents when the Chaney No. 1 came in as a large producer on February 4, 1920. Within a year there were 300 derricks within the city limits, and the population had risen to 15,000. Walker was among the oilmen who benefited from this boom. In October 1920 the Western Oil Derrick reported that Walker was part of a very large oil deal in which he paid the Bass Petroleum Company $1.5 million for a forty-acre lease in the Stephens County district. The lease included a well that was producing approximately 5,000 barrels a day. As a result of such spectacular oil production, Breckenridge soon had two daily newspapers, eighty-nine oil companies, and was served by three railroads. Walker received much of the credit for bringing the railroad lines to the city. In 1920 he also constructed a new building for his bank. During the oil frenzy in Stephens County, the new town of Breckwalker, located nine miles south of Breckenridge, opened to lot seekers on May 10, 1920. One newspaper stated, "The new town was laid out by Jake L. Hamon and Frank Kell " with the advice of "Breckenridge Stephens Walker, a self-made Stephens County millionaire, for whom it is named, as the most available place in that section for a good oil fields town." An advertisement that appeared on May 7 in the Dublin Progress and Telephone stated that Walker owned most of the surrounding territory. The promoters envisioned that the town would become a supply center for the surrounding oilfields. The Eastland, Wichita Falls and Gulf Railro

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Camp Breckenridge, C.S.A.

1862

Established near this site 1862. Part Confederate frontier defense line from Red River to Rio Grande. Occupied by company of Texas Frontier Regiment. Posts were day's horseback ride apart and area patrolled regularly. Duties included curbing Indian raids, rounding up draft evaders and renegades. Confederates were poorly fed, clothed and lacked horses, ammunition. They shared few of the glories of the war, but at the cost of the lives of not a few of them, these men gave a measure of protection to a vast frontier area. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy; Erected by the State of Texas 1963

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Walter Prescott Webb's Formative Years

1892

Noted historian Walter Prescott Webb (1888-1963) came with his family to Stephens County at the age of four. Over the next seventeen years, Webb received an education in frontier life that formed the basis of his intellectual development and his theories on the role of the Great Plains in American history. Webb's father, Casner, was a rural schoolteacher and farmer. As he moved to different teaching assignments, the family moved with him. W.P. Webb thus was exposed to the physical geographical variety within the county that was so important to his western thesis. His neighbors were prime sources of frontier lore. Although Webb's public school experiences were infrequent, it was during these formative years in Stephens County that he developed his love of books and his desire to attend college. Also during this time, Webb was contacted by William Hinds of New York, who was to become his benefactor and a great source of encouragement for the young scholar. In 1906 Walter P. Webb received his teaching certificate and spent the next three years as a rural educator. In 1909, at the age of 21, Webb left his home in Stephens County to pursue his college education at the University of Texas in Austin.

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Gunsolus, Dr. Peter

1850

(March 18, 1801-May 23, 1886) A native of Chicago, Dr. Peter Gunsolus came to this area in the 1850s. He lived and practiced medicine in Shackelford, Parker, and Stephens Counties. Gunsolus eventually settled here on Duck Creek, which was later renamed in his honor, and was a valued member of the community. Although some accounts state he was the father of 53 children from his seven marriages, many of those may have been step-children. Gunsolus Creek has played an important role in Breckenridge history as the site of social, religious, and civic activities.

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Breckenridge, Texas

Music in Breckenridge

Songs About Breckenridge

Artists From Breckenridge

Rivers & Roads in Song near Breckenridge

History of Breckenridge

Breckenridge, TX RoadyGoat

Breckenridge, TX RoadyGoat

Breckenridge, TX RoadyGoat

Clemons, Basil Edwin

Walker, Breckenridge Stephens

Camp Breckenridge, C.S.A.

Walter Prescott Webb's Formative Years

Gunsolus, Dr. Peter

Things to Do in Breckenridge

Everything Near Breckenridge