Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Borger Borger, TX

Borger is a Texas Panhandle oil boomtown that was founded in March 1926, when town promoter A. P. 'Ace' Borger and his partner John R. Miller bought a 240-acre townsite near the Canadian River after oil was discovered in the area.

Within about ninety days of its founding, sensational advertising and the lure of 'black gold' drew more than 45,000 people to Borger — nearly four times its modern population.

Borger is named for Ace Borger himself, the promoter who also established Stinnett, the Hutchinson County seat, and several other small towns in Texas and Oklahoma.

The boomtown grew so lawless that in the spring of 1927 Governor Dan Moody sent in the Texas Rangers, led by Captains Frank Hamer and Thomas R. Hickman, to rein it in.

Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton captured Borger's wild first year in his famous large painting 'Boomtown.'

Borger adopted its city charter in October 1926, the same year it was founded, and John R. Miller became its first mayor.

Borger is the largest city in Hutchinson County, with 12,551 residents at the 2020 census — a fraction of its 45,000-person boom peak.

The 2020 census counted 4,862 households in Borger, and about 79 percent of its homes are owner-occupied, with a median owner-occupied home value of only about $103,400.

Borger is home to Frank Phillips College, a public community college whose attendance district covers all of Hutchinson County, and its students attend Borger Independent School District schools, including Borger High School, home of the Bulldogs.

By the 1960s Borger had become one of the largest centers of oil, carbon black, and petrochemical production in Texas, and in 1969 it was designated an All-America City.