If you have never seen a fracking boomtown, it can be hard to picture. You drive into a town that at first seems like any town, until you slowly notice that on this particular Main Street there are far too many hotels. Then you start to see the oversized white trucks, the hundreds of Rams and Rangers and Silveradaos that prowl the crowded streets, most displaying Texas and Wyoming and Oklahoma plates {even when you are nowhere near these places}. You also note that the drivers of the trucks are twentysomething men, who, like their trucks, are almost all white.
Visiting a fracking boomtown can be surprising for those who have never experienced it. At first glance, the town appears typical, but upon closer inspection, the abundance of hotels and oversized trucks becomes apparent. These elements signal the economic boom driven by the fracking industry. Streets filled with vehicles from distant states indicate that many workers have flocked to the area for job opportunities.
The demographic of these workers is also noteworthy, as the truck drivers predominantly consist of young white men. This representation highlights the socio-economic dynamics at play within boomtowns, where the influx of labor transforms ordinary towns into bustling hubs of activity and tension, driven by the fracking boom.
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Other quotes in All The Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West
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All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.
Race of Cain, ascend to heaven, And cast God down upon the earth!
