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FRANKEL CITY, TEXAS. Frankel City, at the junction of Farm roads 181 and 1967 in western Andrews County, began with the county's oil boom. It was established as Fullerton in 1941 with the drilling of a discovery well by the Fullerton Oil Company. During World War IIqv other wells were drilled, and by 1945 there were reportedly 100 rigs drilling in a five-by-eight-mile area. Several companies opened oilfield supply stores and built camps on the sand hills in the area for about 750 workers and their families. Students were bused to Andrews, which had the only school in the county. A post office opened in 1948 with G. W. Blanchard as postmaster, and the town was renamed Frankel City after the Frankel Brothers Oil Company. Skeet Morris was the community's first and only mayor. As drilling was completed in the area the town began to decline, and on March 12, 1976, its post office closed. At one time the town had several stores and filling stations, two cafés, two churches, and a telephone exchange. By the 1980s Frankel City comprised a café, a house, a mobile home, and an estimated population of eleven.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Andrews County History, 1876-1978 (Andrews, Texas: Andrews County Heritage Committee, 1978).

Tracey L. Compton

 

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