Olney's Story Runs Through Rail, Oil, and Open-Field Work

Olney grew in north-central Young County, where people settled around 1879 and 1880. Pitts Neal and the Neely brothers used the site for annual ranch roundups. John W. Groves donated two acres for a townsite in 1889, and J. M. Brisco opened a store there. The Wichita Falls and Southern Railway reached the place in 1909, incorporation came that same year, and the community shifted about a mile north to meet the tracks.

Oil added another turn. It was discovered in 1923, and the Swastika Pool began producing in 1924. By 1930 Olney had three refineries and about 5,000 people. Those pieces make the place feel less like one-industry country and more like a small city that kept changing with the work around it.

The later economy widened into agribusiness and manufacturing, including agricultural airplanes, recreational vehicles, aluminum products, rubber hose, and apparel. That is a lot of Young County in one place: cattle country, rail timing, oil work, and machines built for big open fields. Olney did not trade one identity for another. It stacked them.