In October 1917, the McClesky No. 1 well started the Ranger oilfield boom in North Texas. In just 20 months, the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company — whose stock had skyrocketed from $30 to $1,250 a share — was drilling 22 wells in the area. Eight refineries were open or under construction, and the city’s four banks had $5 million in deposits.

Conrad Hilton visited Cisco, Texas, intending to buy a bank. When the deal fell through, he went from the train station across the street to a two-story red brick building called the Mobley Hotel. He noticed roughnecks from the booming Ranger oilfield waiting in line for a room.

Investment capital and aspiring millionaires soon overwhelmed the little town of Ranger as well as nearby Cisco, where the Texas Central Railroad crossed the Texas & Pacific. The Ranger oilfield gave birth to countless stories of fortunes made with gushers and good luck.

But only one tale endures of a fortune made because oil was easier to find than a good place to sleep.

The McClesky No. 1 well struck oil in October 1917, reached a daily production of 1,700 barrels — and launched an economic boom that forever changed Eastland County, Texas.

Conrad Hilton learned the banking business from the ground up in his hometown of San Antonio, N.M. As a young man with only $2,900 capital, he founded the New Mexico State Bank of San Antonio. His tenacity in pursuit of investors and deposits paid off.

In two years, Hilton built his bank’s assets to $135,000. He believed he had found his life’s work. World War I interrupted his plans, prompting Hilton to sell his bank and serve his country.

Upon returning from France after the Armistice, Hilton began anew. He set out for Albuquerque, determined to start again in the banking business. But times had changed and banking opportunities had dried up. Despite Hilton’s best efforts, he couldn’t break back into the business.

Then a longtime Albuquerque friend, Emmett Vaughey, suggested Texas, where the Ranger oilfield was making millionaires. Persuaded and confident, Hilton boarded the train bound for Wichita Falls. But just as he had found in Albuquerque, there was no room for a “new guy” in the solidly locked up banking community of Wichita Falls. The same was true even further south, in Breckenridge.

View of downtown Cisco, Texas, in the 1920s.

Disappointed but determined, Hilton continued down the Texas Central Railroad to the Cisco railway station, just east of Ranger’s booming oilfield in Eastland County. He was 31 years old and determined to build a banking empire.

With $5,011 in his pockets, Hilton walked to the first bank he saw in Cisco and found to his delight that it was for sale – asking price — $75,000.

Accustomed to finding financial backers and undeterred by the $70,000 shortfall, he wired the absentee Kansas City owner to close the deal. Hilton was poised to build the banking empire he had long dreamed of when the seller came back by telegram, tersely raising the price to $80,000.

In his autobiography, Be My Guest, Conrad Hilton recalled telling the startled telegraph operator, “He can keep his bank!” Then I strode out of the station and across the street to a two-story red brick building boosting itself as the ‘Mobley Hotel.’

Conrad Hilton described his first hotel as “a cross between a flophouse and a gold mine.”

Henry Mobley, the hotel’s owner, was making the most he could off of the Ranger oilfield boom. His lobby was constantly packed with tired workers, maneuvering for space and impatiently awaiting their turn to rent a room. Mobley rented the hotel’s 40 beds in eight-hour blocks corresponding to oilfield shifts.

Hilton joined the crowd in line, suddenly alert to an unanticipated opportunity. He approached Henry Mobley, who was convinced that the real money was in oil, not in the “glorified boarding house” business. Before long, they closed a $40,000 deal and Conrad Hilton had his first hotel. He would never return to banking.

Later in the year, with profits earned from the Mobley Hotel, Hilton bought the Melba Hotel in Fort Worth, and the following year the Waldorf in Dallas.

Then in 1921, production from the Ranger field collapsed, taking with it scores of businesses and a number of failed banks. Hilton’s hotel business continued to expand. By 1923 he owned five Texas hotels. By 1930, he was the largest hotel operator in the region.

The Depression and the years that followed brought Conrad Hilton challenges that were inevitably answered with tenacity and innovation. While memories of the Ranger oilfield boom gradually slipped into history, Conrad Hilton’s business grew to dominate the hotel marketplace.

The first Hilton Hotel is a tourist attraction.

According to a National Register of listed sites narrative about the Mobley Hotel, Hilton considered his purchase the “ideal hotel to practice on.” He later regarded it as his “first love; a great lady.” Two principals now basic to all Hilton hotels were first tried in the Mobley: maximum reduction of wasted space and “esprit de corps” among the employees.

Today, Hilton is remembered, not as a banker, but as a preeminent hotelier and a unique oilfield entrepreneur. The restored and renovated Mobley Hotel, which Hilton once referred to as, “a cross between a flophouse and a gold mine,” now hosts the Cisco Chamber of Commerce and serves as a community center, museum, and park.

The Bad Santa of Cisco, Texas

Adding to the lore of Cisco, Texas – in addition to being near the 1917 “Roaring Ranger” oilfield and home of Hilton’s first hotel – on December 23, 1927, a man disguised as Santa Claus made an ill-fated attempt to rob a bank two days before Christmas.

Marshall Ratliff donned a Santa Claus disguise and tried to rob the First National Bank with three armed accomplices. A running gun battle with police and citizens ensued, leaving more than a dozen wounded or dead before Ratliff was captured.

“After the gun smoke cleared, six people were dead, eight others wounded, two little girls and a young man had been kidnapped, and two bloody gun battles had been fought, launching the largest manhunt in Texas history,” explains Damon C. Sasser in “The Bloody Cisco Santa Claus Christmas Caper.”

The mortal wounding of a guard during an escape attempt sealed bank-robbing Santa’s fate.

In November 1928, Ratliff attempted to escape from the Eastland County jail and mortally wounded a guard before being subdued. The next morning, enraged citizens dragged Ratliff from the jail and strung him up from a nearby utility pole.

When the first rope broke, they got a new one that did not, according to A. C. Green in his book, The Santa Clause Bank Robbery.

Damon Sasser described “The Bloody Cisco Santa Claus Christmas Caper.”

Organized in 1992, the Eastland County Museum & Historical Society maintains an archive of period photographs and other memorabilia related to the county.

A museum – which is working on an outdoor petroleum history exhibit – explores the history of Eastland County communities, including Carbon, Cisco, Desdemona, Eastland, Gorman, Morton Valley, Ranger, Rising Star, and others.

Please support the American Oil & Gas Historical Society with a donation.