Oil! New Texas boom spawns riches, headaches

[Jesus Malverde]

Not long ago, Richard Dockery was a real estate and insurance broker in this town of 1,800 residents, putting together small land deals and cobbling together a nest egg for retirement.

Today, Dockery, 47, lives in a new, 2,400-square-foot home that he bought with cash and will have his 23-year-old daughter's medical school bills covered before she steps into her first classroom.

Once a month, a six-figure check in his name arrives in his mailbox from an energy company — royalties earned by leasing his property to oil companies and co-owning wells. It's one of several that appear in his box each month that, added up, equal roughly the annual salary of a midlevel NBA player.

"It's crazy," Dockery says. "And I'm small fry. There are literally thousands of people out here who are millionaires, and some who are going to be billionaires. It's the wild, wild West."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/15/texas-oil-boom-fracking/4481977/

[sammytko]

1. We were just talking about this town the other day - there is NOTHING out there

I don't care how much oil or whatever they have - nothing to do, but maybe count your money?

It is about 50 miles from my house (nothing here either-lol) and the traffic through here is terrible.

Used to be you could drive on the state hiway 16 and not see a car for miles. Now it is big trucks hauling stuff 24/7. So many buildings and businesses going up. My small town is just on the edge of this, so nothing has changed here.

We wonder what will happen to all the hotels once the boom is over. Because really, there is nothing out here. We are the closest small town to san Antonio - 22 miles away.