Editing Kermit, Texas (section)

==History==

[[File:Winkler County Courthouse 1910.jpg|thumb|left|Old Winkler County Courthouse in Kermit, c. 1910<ref>Wylene Kirk, "Early Post Offices and Towns in the Permian Basin Area", Texas Permian Historical Annual 1 (August 1961). Roger M. and Diana Davids Olien, Oil Booms (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982). A History of Winkler County (Kermit, Texas: Winkler County Historical Commission, 1984).
Julia Cauble Smith. Retrieved 2009-12-21
</ref>]]

===Establishment===

Kermit began as a convenient supply center for the scattered ranches of the area and became the seat of Winkler County when the county was organized in 1910. The first public school and the post office opened the same year. The town's namesake, [[Kermit Roosevelt]], once visited the T Bar Ranch in northern Winkler County to hunt [[Pronghorn|antelope]] a few months before the town was named. In 1916, the county suffered a drought. Many homesteaders and ranchers were forced to leave. In 1924, only Ern Baird's family remained in the town. Only one student attended school in the county for five months of 1924. Only three houses and the courthouse were in use by 1926.

===Discovery of oil===

On July 16, 1926, however, oil was discovered in Hendrick oilfield, near Kermit, and the town experienced a boom. In 1927, a population of 1,000 was reported; by 1929 that number increased to 1,500. On March 4, 1929, the Texas-New Mexico Railway reached the town.

===Great Depression and incorporation===

The [[Great Depression]] had little effect on the city throughout much of the 1930s, but the population decreased significantly in the early 1930s, and both population and business figures rose at the end of the 1930s, when 2,700 residents and 180 businesses were listed. On February 15, 1938, residents voted to incorporate. During the 1940s, the oil boom caused real estate prices to double. Housing was scarce, and some people lived in tents. A bank was opened by 1945. The grade school had to be enlarged, and a hospital was built.

===Oil boom days===
[[File:Kermit Watertowers.jpg|thumb|left|View of Kermit]]
In the 1950s, the town continued to grow; housing additions were built. By 1960, the city had a population of 10,465 and 260 businesses, and additional growth estimated to be over 12,000 during the decade. Flooding became a problem because of the flat terrain, so new crown streets were constructed to solve the flooding problem, and more housing additions were built. The town moved the last working wooden derrick in the [[Permian Basin (North America)|Permian Basin]] from [[Loving County]] to Pioneer Park in Kermit in 1966 as a symbol of the importance of the oil industry to the economy of Kermit and Winkler County. In the 1970s and 1980s, the population of Kermit bounced between 8,500 and 6,912, and the number of businesses moved between 200 and 116. Improvements were made in city services, and more housing additions were built.

On June 3, 1980, a 9-ft-wide (3 m) [[sinkhole]] opened on the property of [[Atlantic Richfield Company]] and got progressively larger.  Within four days, it had become a tourist attraction, with a crater measuring {{convert|400|by|200|ft|abbr=on}}, and as much as {{convert|30|ft|abbr=on}} deep.<ref>"W. Texas Sinkhole Still Growing; Some Are Amused, Some Scared", ''Miami Herald'', June 8, 1980, p3</ref>  The 1990 United States census set the population of Kermit at 6,875.