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A restored
Skelly Oil Filling Station
Photo courtesy Roy Saffel, September 2006 |
History in
an Oil Can:
The town was named for Oklahoman William Grove Skelly, oil speculator
and founder of the Skelly Oil Company. The Skelly Company tapped into
the rich Roxana field - under land that had been leased from rancher
Henry Schafer. Schafer in the mid 1920s platted a town that was sandwiched
between the two oil camps of Roxana (north) and Noelette (east). Growth
was limited and the people who tried to settle here had no existing
infrastructure. Water had to be hauled in.
The Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway built a branch line from White
Deer and built a depot just north of Skelly. The railroad's arrival
spurred all three camps/ towns to converge around the depot and before
long the Skellytown Townsite Company was formed. Skellytown had over
100 working wells and two refineries working - all within a four month
period. |
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The
Skellytown Jail (?)
Photo courtesy Roy Saffel, September 2006 |
In
addition to the Skelly shops, storage warehouses and lumberyards nearly
outnumbered residences. The town also had seven groceries, three drugstores,
and entertainment was provided by a dance hall, movie, and at least
one pool hall. For the transient population there was a hotel and
many rooming houses.
1927 began with the opening of the Skellytown post office in January
of that year and a weekly newspaper began publication. A small emergency
hospital was opened by Dr. F. S. Coolen and an elementary school opened
all within the same year.
From a respectable population of 450 in 1931, it declined to only
154 in just two years. During the war the machine shops retooled for
the war effort and the population rose to nearly 700 by 1943. The
town incorporated in the late 1950s and a modern water/ sewer infrastructure
was installed. The population was nearly 900 by the mid 1980s, 664
for the 1990 census and the current (2006) map shows a population
of 610. |
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