Ace Borger and his business partner John R. Miller purchased a 240-acre (0.97 km2) townsite near the Canadian River in March 1926 after the discovery of oil in the vicinity.

By this time, the Panhandle & Santa Fe Railway had completed the spur line to Borger, a post office had opened, and a school district was established.

Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton depicted this period of Borger in his large painting Boomtown.

[7] In the months that followed, oilmen, roughnecks, prospectors, panhandlers, and fortune seekers were joined by cardsharks, prostitutes, bootleggers, and drug dealers.

The town government soon fell under control of an organized crime syndicate led by Mayor Miller's shady associate, "Two-Gun Dick" Herwig.

Murder and robbery became an everyday occurrence, and illegal moonshining and home brewing flourished under the fatherly watch of Herwig and his henchmen, including W. J.

The Rangers did have a stabilizing effect, but Borger still struggled with lawlessness and violence into the 1930s, climaxing with the murder of District Attorney John A. Holmes by an assassin on September 18, 1929.

This event caused Governor Moody to impose martial law for a month and send in state troops to help rid the town of its criminal element.

"Okie" migrants forced off their foreclosed farms back in Oklahoma found work in Borger plants and refineries.

The original townsite is said to have been founded around 1898 by John F. Weatherly, a rancher who built a dugout and gave the future town the grandiose name of Granada.

When oil was discovered in early 1926, Weatherly returned and moved the town to the oilfield spur of the railroad near Borger.

Although the town had a railroad depot, several oil-well supply warehouses, and no shortage of would-be citizens, a petition signed by 1,200 residents in early December declared Borger the winner.

[9] Borger and Hutchinson County are among the strongest Republican voting districts in Texas and the nation, having cast GOP ballots at the presidential level in all elections for more than a half century.

Even Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona, who received fewer votes nationally and in Texas versus native Texan Lyndon B. Johnson, won Hutchinson County, 5,358 to 4,625.

In 1996, Robert J. Dole of Kansas polled 6,350 votes in Hutchinson County to 2,553 for incumbent President Bill Clinton.

[10] In the 2008 presidential primaries, Hutchinson County cast 3,170 votes in the Republican race and 1,538 in the Democratic contest.

[11] In the 2008 presidential election, Hutchinson County cast 7,361 votes for John McCain and 1,322 for Barack Obama.