OTIS CHALK

Sherman Augusta Padgett

 

            It all started in the mid-summer of the year 1925.  What started was the boom of Otis Chalk.  On the hot summer day in 1925 Owin and Stone struck oil; the first wild cats in these parts.  In that same year with that one producing well, Owin and Stone sold wells and lease rights to THE MAGINOA OIL COMPANY.

            That year the people started moving in.  There were more rigs moved in.  All kinds and makes, they were all steam rigs.  The town started to grow.  At first a grocery store was built, and it was owned by Boone Cramer.  As the months went by more stores were built.  There was two cafes and a filling station.  Then another grocery store was built along with a welding shop.  They named it the TEXAS MACHINE SHOP.

            The people put up their tents and their old shacks, as they came in.  Some lived in the two boarding houses that were built around chalk.  One of the boarding houses is where Mr. Ratliff lives now.  It was really a ruff go in those boom days.  They had very miserable winters.  In the spring, when the storms would come, the people would swear that their tents and shacks would blow away.  The people cooked on wooden stoves.  On Saturday afternoon the farm boss would lone the roustabouts the company truck, and they would get together and cut enough mesquite wood to last them all week.  The times were bad all right, the men’s salary was $2.00 and $3.00 a day.  The days are not like they are today.  Their days were mostly twelve and not just eight.   The work was very hard, and there was no machinery like there is today.  The men had to use their back instead of their minds.  There were no roads.  When they went to Big Spring, they went by cow trails.  It would take them about two hours and thirty minutes to make it if the roads were in dry condition.  If it was muddy, many times they could not make it.  They would have to turn around and come back.  In 1926 there was a post office put in.  Before they put in the post office, the mail was left at Boone Cramer’s store.  He would take the bag and dump it out into the middle of the floor, and then the people would pick up his own mail.  Miss Ogesby was the first one to run the post office.  Then in the later years Miss Story took it over.  Mr. Stockton was the mail man at that time.  As the town grew, they got a car dealership in Chalk.  The owner was Therman Cole.  In the months he was there, he bought a grocery store and a rooming house.

            Then it happened.  Otis Chalk got them a school house.  They named it the Chalk School after the Chalk’s.  Doris Cole was one of the teachers that taught there.  Then after years of hardship the town of Chalk began to move.  The people were heading West to start a new boom.  The old chalk school was no longer in use.

            Before Otis Chalk became a ghost town there was at one time more than a thousand people living there.  Now in 1957, there is only one building left.  That is the post office.  At least Otis Chalk is still on the map.

THE END