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Jazz-Age Boomtown by Jerry Rodnitzky & Shirley Rodnitzky |
The 1920s oil boom changed every aspect of life in the once sleepy town of Breckenridge, Texas—and marked the beginnings of modern American culture. Jazz-Age Boomtown documents the changing social history of small-town America and the oil boom phenomenon in a stunning photographic essay on Breckenridge.
Basil Clemons was the town’s only professional photographer and its resident eccentric, living out in the open on a vacant lot and setting up his photo lab in a wagon. After having traveled around the West, he returned to Texas in 1919 and settled in Breckenridge. His return coincided with the discovery of oil.
Suddenly, ranchers became oilmen, school teachers became oil wildcatters, and entrepreneurs moved in to feed, house, and entertain the populace. Within two years, Breckenridge’s population grew to nearly thirty thousand, and the roughneck boomtown became a vigorous commmercial city of schools, churches, and modern housing.
Clemons photographed not only the oil fields but also many other aspects of Breckenridge’s boom—views of streets, fires, floods, the circus, sporting events, ranches, and restaurants—capturing the boomtown atmosphere. His pictures reflect the transformation of rural to urban values in the early twentieth century, providing a visual history of modern American culture.
JERRY RODNITZKY, professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the author of many articles on twentieth-century American culture. SHIRLEY RODNITZKY is manuscript archivist in the Special Collections Division, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.
Number Five: The Charles & Elizabeth Prothro Texas Photography Series
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Jazz-Age Boomtown ISBN 0-89096-757-1 paper $19.95
7x10. 160 pp. 100 b&w photos. Bib. Index. Publication Date: May 1997. |
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