Editing Comanche County, Texas (section)

===Arrival of the railroad===
The Texas Central Railroad<ref>{{cite web|last=Young|first=Nancy Beck|title=Texas Centrail Railroad|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/eqt11|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=December 1, 2010}}</ref> began service in Comanche County in 1885 and began carrying cattle and cotton to market.<ref name="Comanche County, Texas"/> By 1890, cotton had become king in the county, but by the start of the 20th century, the [[boll weevil]] had devastated the county cotton industry for three decades. In 1907, farmers in the county began to experiment with peanut farming.<ref name="Comanche County, Texas"/>

Oil was discovered at Desdemona in 1910.<ref>{{cite book|last=Grant|first=Joseph M|title=The Great Texas Banking Crash: An Insider's Account |year=1996|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-72791-5|page=6}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Desdemona, Texas|url=http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasGhostTowns/Desdemona-Texas.htm|work=Texas Escapes|publisher=Texas Escapes – Blueprints For Travel, LLC|access-date=December 1, 2010}}</ref> The peak year for the Comanche County oil boom was 1920.<ref name="Comanche County, Texas"/>

In 1951–1952, a desperate, drought-stricken county experimented with rain making.<ref name="Comanche County, Texas"/> [[Proctor Lake]] was impounded in 1963 to provide flood control and drinking water.<ref>{{cite web|title=Proctor Lake History|url=https://www.swf-wc.usace.army.mil/proctor/Information/History.asp|publisher=US Army Corps of Engineers|access-date=December 1, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101218115545/http://www.swf-wc.usace.army.mil/proctor/Information/History.asp|archive-date=December 18, 2010|url-status=live}}</ref>

From 1968 to 1974, Comanche County native Jim Reese served as the mayor of [[Odessa, Texas]]. He launched unsuccessful congressional campaigns in the 1976 general election against the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] [[George H. Mahon]] and in the 1978 [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[Partisan primary|primary]] against [[George W. Bush]]. During the 1970s, the oil industrialist [[Bill Noël]] of Odessa purchased orchards in Comanche County.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fno26|title=William Douglas Noël|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=June 27, 2011|date=June 15, 2010}}</ref>

As of 1982, Comanche produced more than {{convert|45546000|lb}} of peanuts, ranking second in Texas.<ref name="Comanche County, Texas"/>