City of Breckenridge

Oil, football…and the Bankhead Highway? That’s the story in Breckenridge. The Stephens County seat, Breckenridge started out as little more than a Wild West-like oil town with tent encampments, shacks, and gambling halls. Oil wells gushed into the 1920s, making men and the town rich. Fancy hotels popped up downtown, and Walker Street was laid with brick.  The improvement of roads connected many of the oil boom towns, including Breckenridge, Cisco, Eastland, and Ranger. Travel between these towns became easier and football rivalries emerged among high schools. High school football was so important it was said that wealthy oil men would travel to towns to scout players and offer higher paying jobs to the fathers of the ones they wanted to play for their team.