Editing McCamey, Texas (section)

==History==
[[Image:McCamey, TX DSCN1382.JPG|thumb|left|Downtown McCamey]]
McCamey is named for George B. McCamey, whose 1925 wildcat well brought about the oil boom in the region.  He brought in a real estate developer from [[Corpus Christi, Texas|Corpus Christi]], to lay out a townsite near the oil field and along the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway capable of housing 10,000 people. The town was initially a jumble of tents and frame shacks; order came slowly, replacing the lawlessness of the early boomtown environment. A post office was built in 1926, and the town was incorporated near the end of that year. In 1927, the [[McCamey Independent School District]] was formed, and an enterprising newspaperman printed the first issue of the ''Tri-County Record'', the first town newspaper.<ref name="tshaonline.org">[https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hjm09 McCamey, Texas, in the Handbook of Texas Online]</ref>

Water supply was a problem in the early years of McCamey, as the nearby water sources were not drinkable. Water came in by train from Alpine, almost {{convert|100|mi|km}} away, at a cost of $1 a barrel. A potable water supply was found in a geologic unit only {{convert|17|mi|km}} distant, and pipes were built to transport it to town in 1929.<ref>[https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcu02 Upton County history from Handbook of Texas Online]</ref>

McCamey was the location of a Humble Oil Company Refinery, one of the first built in [[West Texas]]. [[Humble Oil & Refining Company]] was a corporate predecessor of [[Exxon Company]]. An early experiment by [[Shell Oil Company]] in massive oil storage in McCamey proved a failure; local oilmen built a reservoir to hold up to one million barrels of oil in an earthen tank, but the limestone formation underneath the tank cracked under the weight of the crude, allowing much of it to leak into the subsurface.<ref name="tshaonline.org"/>

The population of the town declined during the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] along with the [[price of oil]], and as the discovery of large oil fields elsewhere pulled workers away. In 1940, 2,600 people were in McCamey; in 1980,  2,436; and the 2000 census showed the population had shrunk to 1,805.<ref name="tshaonline.org"/>