Founding year: the first Ranger post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Ranger’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Ranger is more historic than 50% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
B−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Ranger’s overall grade.
Few Texas towns list much on the Register (a typical Texas town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Ranger’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (34% of Texas towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C to B. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±9.6 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Ranger’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The Texas Pacific Coal Company of Thurber drilled a gas well north of Ranger in August 1917, after town civic leaders offered acreage in return for four test wells. Then on October 11, 1917, the McClesky well, one mile southwest of Ranger, produced oil at 1200 BOPD. Production came from the Strawn Formation sandstones at 1,300 to 2,000 feet (400 to 610 m), the Smithwick Shale, and the Marble Falls Formation limestone at 3,200 to 3,400 feet (980 to 1,040 m) feet. The Ranger Oil Field production peaked in July 1919 at 80,000 BOPD. The oil boom brought many seeking jobs, including farm boys and demobilized veterans.
Passages that mention Ranger, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Captain Bill McDonald, Texas ranger1909 · page 132Read the page →
Read the text
driven away, the Ranger's work changed, but his personality remained the same. The Ranger of * The Ranger's boots like those of the cowboy are made with high heels to prevent his foot from slipping through the stirrup Both the Ranger and the cowboy ride with the stirrup in the middle of the foot, it being safer and also less fatiguing on a long ride, sometimes a distance of a hundred miles between daylight and dark.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Ranger, 1880 to 1943
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
The Ranger post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Ranger rank for history?
Ranger is more historic than 50% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Ranger?
29% of Ranger’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±9.6 points), against a typical 1.6% for a Texas town; the median home was built in 1959.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (3), the Library of Congress (3), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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