Ranger is a city in Eastland County, Texas, set among the rolling, wooded hills of the Cross Timbers region along Interstate 20, roughly midway between Fort Worth and Abilene. Its population is about 2,300. The town's history is inseparable from the Texas oil boom. In October 1917 the McCleskey No. 1 well came in near Ranger, producing up to 1,700 barrels a day and touching off the "Roaring Ranger" boom. Within a few years the area was crowded with wells, drilling crews, and refineries, and Ranger's population may have briefly reached 30,000. The boom made Ranger the first of the great West Texas oil boomtowns, though the surge faded as quickly as it arrived, and the town settled back toward the small scale that defines it today. Ranger's anchor institution is Ranger College, a public community college founded in the aftermath of the boom. Its main campus sits on 50 acres within the city and is among the community's largest employers, and the college provides dual-credit coursework to dozens of surrounding school districts. Ranger ISD operates the local public elementary and secondary schools. Today Ranger is a quiet small town whose economy combines education, local services, and the oil-and-gas and agricultural activity of the surrounding county. Its position on Interstate 20 gives residents direct access to the larger cities on either side of the corridor. The surrounding landscape of wooded, rolling hills and scattered lakes provides the area's recreational backdrop, and the city's historic downtown and preserved boom-era buildings connect the present to its colorful past. For those seeking small-town life with highway access and an educational anchor, Ranger offers a distinctive combination rooted in one of Texas's most storied chapters.