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Boom Town From Joe Pappalardo The Wickedest Town In Texas Is Boger · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: Arrow dot Net. It's more than just a podcast. It
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  Speaker 1: It's on erow dot net A R R O E
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  Speaker 1: dot net. Enjoy your exploration.
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  Speaker 2: What's up Arrow?
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  Speaker 1: Ba ba ba ba ba ba babe bye ba. Do
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  Speaker 1: you ever want to slip into a wolfman?
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  Speaker 2: Jackie?
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  Speaker 1: Yo, baby, you got the wolf Daddy. They don't do
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  Speaker 1: joks like that anymore. Man, It's always like, here's another
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  Speaker 1: four in a row without talk. Well, actually, we just
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  Speaker 1: spoke to Johnny rock in a little while ago, right,
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  Speaker 1: uh right, Joe, Wow, very high energy.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: That is so cool. The good they still exist then, man,
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  Speaker 1: that's what it's all about. It's supposed to be about
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  Speaker 1: rocking those speakers exactly.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing the Johnny fever right now.
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  Speaker 1: Oh boy, right, Arra, you got nine minutes take it away, Joe.
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  Speaker 1: I got to tell you my father would be so
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  Speaker 1: in love with this book because that man he always promoted,
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  Speaker 1: do you got to read westerns? You gotta read westerns.
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  Speaker 1: This plays out, Boomtown plays out like a Western. But
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  Speaker 1: the fucking thing is is that it's it's real. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this is a real story, Dad, This isn't just a western.
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  Speaker 2: You got the classic showdown elements.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you got the crooked town, you got the
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  Speaker 3: Texas Ranger coming in to clean the place up, and
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  Speaker 3: you think it's going to be all black and white.
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  Speaker 3: But in a town like Border, honestly, the black and
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  Speaker 3: white gets pretty muddy pretty fast.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you just got to keep Mail Brooks out of
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  Speaker 1: here because we don't need him messing up this storyline
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  Speaker 1: with a bunch of funny lines. We've got to talk
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  Speaker 1: serious here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, if there's humor in it, it's dark humor. You know.
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  Speaker 2: Some of the killings are downright funny.
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  Speaker 1: Do you run into any of that in the way
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  Speaker 1: that were people that they don't even have to laugh
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  Speaker 1: about it. They just kind of look at each other
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  Speaker 1: and they just giggle on the inside. The soul often often, God,
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  Speaker 1: oh my god.
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  Speaker 3: There's a guy in the There's a guy in the
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  Speaker 3: book named Horace. Horace Norton and he was a traffic cop,
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  Speaker 3: and I fit found out that he actually shot someone
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  Speaker 3: dead in a dance hall in front of everybody and
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  Speaker 3: hadn't really been charged or anything because he had he
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  Speaker 3: worked for the city. So one of the articles noted
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  Speaker 3: that they were calling him the jellybean because he was
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  Speaker 3: like a dandy and he dressed up in like tall
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  Speaker 3: boots and he tucked his pants in. So as soon
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  Speaker 3: as that happened, he got really aggressive and started shooting
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  Speaker 3: at cars on Main Street. Ah.
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  Speaker 2: God.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm like reading stuff like this, and I'm like,
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  Speaker 3: this town delivers the goods. Like you know, that guy
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  Speaker 3: is not known to you know, in Texas history at all,
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  Speaker 3: and here.
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  Speaker 2: He is like his hand delivered for me. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: I love I love some border.
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  Speaker 1: So what is it about people that, Ah, I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: go live in Boger. But that's a bad time. Ah yeah,
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  Speaker 1: from my mom and dad, it might have been bad.
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  Speaker 1: They've changed. Now what is it about us that we
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  Speaker 1: keep going back to these places?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? I mean there's the basic allure of vice. You know.
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  Speaker 3: They had everything spread out on a couple of streets,
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  Speaker 3: Like why do little people go to burden Street.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's you know what you're getting when you
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  Speaker 2: go there.
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  Speaker 3: And if you wanted to speak easy, you know, with
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  Speaker 3: good music or bad music, that you'd find it. Prostitutes everywhere,
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  Speaker 3: gambling right there for you, all the illegal stuff, you know,
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  Speaker 3: all laid out. It was you know, it was Vegas,
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  Speaker 3: but just down the road from the oil fields.
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  Speaker 2: It was a it was a really good setup.
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  Speaker 3: But with all I mean, remember ninety days it went
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  Speaker 3: from zero people to forty five thousand people.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, that's worth Yep, that's that's.
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  Speaker 3: Just a Dutch chum in the water. Every shark's going
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  Speaker 3: to show up there. And that's exactly what happened. And
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  Speaker 3: these are articles of these prostitutes who were leaving towns
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  Speaker 3: in Oklahoma saying I'm going to go to Borger, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: because they knew to find the work there. And that's
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  Speaker 3: contemporary accounts from you know, judges talking to the prostitutes
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  Speaker 3: as they're rousing them from towns.
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  Speaker 2: In border Oh.
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  Speaker 3: And by the way, those towns are run by the
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  Speaker 3: same people, so they knew what they were getting into
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  Speaker 3: as well. There was a certain extent, so just to
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  Speaker 3: say that it attracted people who needed second chances criminals, prostitutes.
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  Speaker 2: Everyone saw the opportunity and they flocked.
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  Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Joe Pappalardo coming
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  Speaker 1: up next. The name of his new book, and it
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  Speaker 1: is a true story. It's called Boomtown, The True Story
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  Speaker 1: of the Wickedest Town in Texas. We are back with
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  Speaker 1: Joe Pappalardo. I gotta say, the real reason why I'm
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  Speaker 1: connected to this story is is because your story of
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  Speaker 1: the oil fields nineteen hundreds, Texas reminds me so much
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  Speaker 1: of what could be and might be going on in
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  Speaker 1: Montana with fracking up there, because fracking has become the
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  Speaker 1: new oil up there, and and or fuel support. And
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  Speaker 1: the thing is is that it's like I'm waiting for
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  Speaker 1: the bad times to happen, because it tends to go
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  Speaker 1: wherever there's black oil or black gold and real gold
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  Speaker 1: out in California or even here in Carolina, there's always
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  Speaker 1: going to be trouble.
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  Speaker 3: It's the well, there's two things that happen in boomtowns,
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  Speaker 3: and one is transiency. And you know, you see that
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  Speaker 3: the conflict in Border was between the people who wanted
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  Speaker 3: to set down roots and the people who wanted to fleece.
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  Speaker 3: It as is, and and their inability to morph from
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  Speaker 3: one to the other. You know, if you know it's
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  Speaker 3: a boom town, if you're staying in the hotel room,
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  Speaker 3: you're not going to treat it as well. Right. So
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  Speaker 3: a place like star Base is a little bit feels
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  Speaker 3: a lot different than an an oil boomtown up in
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  Speaker 3: the you know, out in the field. So it's a
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  Speaker 3: they feel different, but there's that commonality in I'm here
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  Speaker 3: for a reason. I'm here to either build another life
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  Speaker 3: or build a paycheck or and you know what, the
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  Speaker 3: people who are.
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  Speaker 2: Next to me have that in common.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: And that is a and that's a powerful thing to
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  Speaker 3: tap into when you can sort of identify it and
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  Speaker 3: they they.
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  Speaker 2: Feel it, you know, they definitely feel it.
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  Speaker 3: And that was interesting to see reflections of that over
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  Speaker 3: nearly what almost one hundred years now, and you can
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  Speaker 3: still feel that in the writings and the journal of
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  Speaker 3: the newspaper article, all of that.
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  Speaker 2: It's a it's an interesting dynamic.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, boomtown's go bust almost by definition.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: So you know, so so bewaary.
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  Speaker 3: And be aware of that because the people who are there,
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  Speaker 3: they do they know the difference.
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  Speaker 1: I did chuckle though when I when I read about
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  Speaker 1: the bank robbers spending their money inside Boger, and the
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  Speaker 1: reason why I laughed is that I've never thought about, well,
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  Speaker 1: where did Billy the Kid or while Bill Hincock spend
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  Speaker 1: their money. I mean, they had to spend their money.
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  Speaker 2: You want to have a good time. You want to
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  Speaker 2: be able to let your guard down.
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  Speaker 3: You want to be able to pay off the local
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  Speaker 3: law and know that you know that there's plenty, not
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  Speaker 3: just a few speakeasy. He's been a lot of speakeasies
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  Speaker 3: to go to with plenty of fresh women. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you're a bank robber in the twenties, you know why,
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  Speaker 3: you know, why wouldn't you avail yourself of all of
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  Speaker 3: these things? And it was really the and the only
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  Speaker 3: thing that got them to leave the big, the big
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  Speaker 3: names at the time, bank robbers who presaged all the big, big,
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  Speaker 3: big names in the Golden Age that's coming. So this
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  Speaker 3: is a fun era of bank robbery too. The really
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  Speaker 3: the good ones are just learning the trade. But that's
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  Speaker 3: almost besides the point. But but you know it was
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  Speaker 3: it was a fun time for them. They could let
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  Speaker 3: their guard down, and that's what got them in trouble
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  Speaker 3: because it's the same bank robber gang that dropped or
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  Speaker 3: were somehow involved in all of the law enforcement killings
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  Speaker 3: that got the rangers there and made the court system
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  Speaker 3: less forgiving and stopped the payoffs between the bank, the
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  Speaker 3: infamous bank robbers and the public official. So they kind
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  Speaker 3: of lost their safe haven status. And that was something
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  Speaker 3: Hamer accomplished there, or the Rangers did with Hamer at
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  Speaker 3: the forefront.
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  Speaker 1: Listen, listeners and readers have got to understand that that
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  Speaker 1: boomtown is is pre Italian mafia or Irish mafia. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this was in their own way. They had their own
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  Speaker 1: little world going on and it was taking away. And
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  Speaker 1: I swear to God, I've got so much compassion for
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  Speaker 1: these Texas Rangers because did they really know what they
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  Speaker 1: were getting into?
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  Speaker 2: They had, yes, and no.
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  Speaker 3: I think they The problem was they had cleaned up
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  Speaker 3: towns previous, but they had always had martial law declared,
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  Speaker 3: so they had the adjunct general and they could skip
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  Speaker 3: the court system entirely, and they did not have that.
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  Speaker 3: This governor didn't give them that tool, and that sacked
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  Speaker 3: a lot of energy out of the long term solutions
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  Speaker 3: for a town that's as crooked as Borger was, so
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  Speaker 3: they were handcuffed. It's almost that, you know aliens Vietnam
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  Speaker 3: like our typical you know, the boss won't let us fight,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the fight and all that Asa Borger and
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  Speaker 3: and the political leadership wanted was to stave off martial law.
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  Speaker 3: That was their their biggest, biggest imperative, and that was
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  Speaker 3: So that's an interesting dynamic right there, you know, it was.
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  Speaker 2: It was really fun to see that duel.
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  Speaker 3: It's not a gunfight, but it's a showdown anyway, and
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  Speaker 3: the pawns that get moved around are pretty machiavellian on
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  Speaker 3: both sides. You got to give the you got to
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  Speaker 3: give the Borger crowd credit and the rangers, you know,
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  Speaker 3: they had that mission creep that they were fighting against,
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  Speaker 3: and uh, it's a it plays out in showdown fashion.
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  Speaker 1: Please tell me that you're in talks with somebody who's
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  Speaker 1: going to put this either into a documentary or you're
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  Speaker 1: going to put it into a little miniature series that
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  Speaker 1: we can binge watch. There's too much real junk here
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  Speaker 1: that make people like myself giggle and laugh like a
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  Speaker 1: freaking child because we like reading and experiencing stuff like this.
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  Speaker 2: I just scream out loud enough for La to hear.
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  Speaker 3: If there's still an industry left out there, I just
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  Speaker 3: you know, you might have better chance with the documentary.
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  Speaker 2: I like it as a you know.
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  Speaker 3: Narcos and a highbrid of Boomtown and Deadwood. You know,
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  Speaker 3: it's it really is Boomtown, Deadwood had a baby. But
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  Speaker 3: it's a true story. I mean that's the log line.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, if any producers are hearing it anywhere, for
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  Speaker 3: the love of God, give my agent a call.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
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  Speaker 1: the future, Joe. The door is always going to be
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  Speaker 1: open for you. Bring those stories on.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: Let's pass that word forward.
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  Speaker 2: You're a good man era.
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  Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I will certainly try